What kind of a hike?

There is a Costco in Hiroshima.  The Jenkins invited us to go with them this week to check it out.  It's an all-day affair.  

We left in the morning and switched car seats so we could all ride in the Jenkins' monstrous (by Japanese standards) van.  If you're not a member it costs about $60 to park in their parking structure because it's right next to the Hiroshima baseball stadium and they don't want any spill-over event parking.  

It was nice to walk around a familiar store.  It was about 60/40 American to Japanese products.  Every Japanese person we passed had a big bag of those Costco rolls everyone has at missionary farewells/homecomings.  After we shopped Vanessa wanted to take a Costco pizza home for dinner, so we played in the courtyard while she waited in line.  There was much giggling and pointing at the blonde children from the other Japanese patrons enjoying their lunches.  

We were not offended, as we do plenty of giggling and pointing at them around here ourselves.  This week Vivi got into my makeup and pretended she was David Bowie.

She sat like a slug in many layers of princess pajamas at the girls high school soccer tournament.

She tried on Daddy's combat boots (which might as well have been cemented to the floor for how far she was able to go in them).

 And she tried her skill with chopsticks at the udon noodle place downtown.  The noodles are like 2 feet long and extremely slippery.  She ended up using her fingers.  Actually, so did I.

 And so did Rafe.

Rafe got his first haircut this week.  It did not go as I had planned.  I took some little-boy hairstyle pictures to the barber shop, but no one spoke any English and he was squirmy, so now we have a mini Marine.  

Marines, as you know, are few and proud, so yesterday we took him and his sister on a hike up a mountain that you could take a tram to the top of.  Only a few people are crazy enough to hike where you could ride, and they are very proud of their accomplishment.  We took the train and then the ferry to Miyajima.

 Our baby backpack is in our household goods shipment, which is still not here, so we rented 2 from the gear rental place on base.  For free!!!!

 The hike starts by a Buddhist temple.  All the statues were dressed for cold weather with hand crocheted/knitted hats, scarves, and wraps.

 And then we basically did the stairmaster for an hour with 30 pound packs.  If anyone touches my legs today, I snarl like a cornered tiger.

 This gate was at the top of the ridge to the summit.  We passed through trepidatiously.

When we finally made it to the top on our shaky legs, we ate some lunch. 

And drank some water.

And snuggled together, because the wind was cold.  

There is an observation platform built on top of the mountain that offers a pretty spectacular 360 view.  Here's 180 of it (it was too crowded to get the other side.  Iwakuni is a little to the right of center down there on the coast across the water.  

 And here's a view in the other direction.  The tram comes up to the building on the ridge to the left.

 Our way back down was very bouncy, and we managed to jiggle both babies to sleep.

 Rafe didn't even wake up till we were off the ferry and on our way to the train station.  (Mount Misen is the left of the tallest humps)

Hurray for hiking!  Hurray for babies!  Hurray for Japan!