Sayonara Ruka chan!!

yesterday, we said goodbye to our little 10-day-daughter from japan. It was great fun to have her come and stay with us. we went ice skating and to the waterpark and of course the beach. She is from Aichi-ken somewhere near nagoya and she is only 11 years old. we could believe that a girl her age could leave her parents and come to live with perfect strangers in hawaii. she came with her classmates and english teacher. i taught three english lessons to the little group (3 boys and 2 girls) and it made me fall in love with teaching again. i love to teach japanese kids english because i know exactly what they are saying but still speak to them in english -har har har! (that is supposed to be the sound of an evil laugh). Yumeno was another girl that came with the group and the two of them became really good friends. they hung out a lot together which was fine because we are friends with yumeno's host couple- Arturo and Kirsten.
It was fun to play the mama and papa with her. she obeyed our every command just like a good little girl. and she loved my cooking!! that made me feel good. the only thing that juano really knows how to say in japanese is 'kokoro' which means heart so whenever he said it the girls giggled. they also told me that they prefer darker skinned boys over white kids. i stake my claim on juano. they were so much fun. a lot better at smiling for the camera under the water than me. HEY! i have to protect my contacts and i can't hold my breath!!

I GOT STUNG....

by a portuguese man of war.
which one of these do you think it was?
well if you used deductive reasoning and knowing that i am in hawaii and not i
n portugal you would guess the blue bubble above. i have lived in hawaii for about 3 years now and have always wondered what it felt like to be stung by one of this seemingly insignificant little guys- well my experience yesterday ended all my wondering.juano and i come to this beach often to go boogie boarding. we had just gotten tired of playing in the waves with the boards and started to play in the sand when the attack of the portuguese man of war occured. we thought we were really clever to make a little pool out of sand in which the water would spill into when the waves climbed up the beach. our little pool turned into a blue bubble trap. after one of the waves had subsided i felt something on the side of my leg between the two of us and thinking it was a stick or piece of ocean i started to grab for it. that is when i felt the sting. on my leg and my fingers. juano luckily didn't get stung because his shorts were protecting him. i wasn't so lucky. it hurt so bad!! a guy walking by noticed me writhing in pain and by the look on his face i could tell he had some experience with the little buggers. he said that it would be really painful for 20 minutes. well in my case it was over an hour. but i recovered. the sting didn't completely wear off for about 6 hours. i was surprised that such a little thing could could do that. reading up on it we discovered that you could even die from them...probably 1 in 100 million though- but still!!
just a day at the beach... (mountains anyone?)