Haggis, Okinawa, Japan

Lisag123 Posted Oct 4, 2009, 10:41 pm	Hi! My name is Haggis, pleased to meet you! I am here at home waiting for my first big journey. I think I'll have myself a nice big  dog bone!
arc-en-ciel Posted Oct 27, 2009, 10:53 am	Hi Lisa, greetings from Finland! My journey was quite long but it went well. I arrived at Kaisa's (my host's) place today. The first thing I did was help Kaisa write this update. Me and Kaisa will get to know each other better later, because now she has to go to work. We will go out and do some sightseeing as soon as the weather gets a little better: at the moment it's raining. I'll keep you posted! Haggis
arc-en-ciel Posted Oct 28, 2009, 9:54 am	Hello again! Last night I slept like a puppy (having great dreams about big dog bones!), and woke up late this morning. When we were eating breakfast I tried to read the local newspaper but didn't understand a word! Finnish is a really strange-looking language. Sadly none of the headlines had anything to do with dogs. Can you see the blue-and-white square-shaped thing on the wall behind me? It's made of postcards. My host is a Postcrosser, and she has a big collection of cards. She assembled the prettiest blue cards into one big work of art to make the plain white wall look nicer. I went to the balcony to see what the view looks like in the daylight with no mist or rain. I could see quite far away. The building with the red roof houses among other things a hotel and a pub. Kaisa hasn't decided yet what we are going to do today, but she said she has some good ideas. Love, Haggis
arc-en-ciel Posted Oct 29, 2009, 9:42 pm	Kaisa took me for a walk in the park yesterday. There were almost no leaves left in the trees... ...but I found loads of them on the ground! I spent quite a while playing among the leaves with my host. The park is right next to the lake Pyhäjärvi. Yesterday was a windy day, and I was really glad that Kaisa held on to me tightly so the wind didn't blow me away like a leaf! We sat on a bench admiring the view over the lake. You could see all the way to the city center on the other side of the lake. On our way back home we came across this little pond with ducks swimming in it. I think the ducks thought we had brought some bread for them, because they came very close to us and looked a little disappointed - to my eye at least - when they found out we didn't have any food with us. We also saw a squirrel, but he was too quick to jump out of sight when Kaisa tried to capture the two of us in the same picture. I think I have some more adventures ahead tomorrow. Until then, bye and good night!
arc-en-ciel Posted Oct 30, 2009, 11:55 am	Today me and my host visited the park and the arboretum of Hatanpää. The park has been formed around a big old mansion (which was built in the end of the 19th century), and there is also a big rose garden in the premises. The arboretum right next to the park is a home for lots of different plants and trees. I loved all the gigantic old trees, but this one was my absolute favourite: Here's me and the mansion: We also walked through the rose garden. Kaisa told me that there were dozens of different types of roses. The garden is in its prettiest in the summer when all the roses are blooming, but I managed to find one still good-looking flower to pose with. Here's a nice little bridge we found in the arboretum.
arc-en-ciel Posted Nov 2, 2009, 7:13 am	Yesterday my host took me for a walk along the lake shore. I spotted a rescue boat! You can see the Pyynikki ridge on the other side of the lake. This tree was growing above the water. I wanted to go further and see more of the landscape, but my host told me it would be too dangerous. I kind of like this silhouette photo of me. New adventures tomorrow, until then!
arc-en-ciel Posted Nov 6, 2009, 11:48 am	It's been a rainy day, so I have spent time inside. Today I listened to my host play the violin. She says she's not very good at it, but at least she did better than me - the violin was way too big for me to play it! I tried to read the notes, but came to the conclusion that as a skilled dog I don't need them... ... I can always improvise! I have made a new friend here. His name is Ressu, he's a beagle who loves writing and travelling, just like me. He's not a Toyvoyager, but he has a blog of his own. You can find Ressu's blog here. Guess what... it's snowing outside! I think Kaisa will take me out to play in the snow tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!
arc-en-ciel Posted Nov 8, 2009, 5:21 pm	Kaisa took me to the city center to see the church of Aleksanteri. The church was originally built in 1881, but in the 1930's a fire destroyed most of it. It was restored in 1938 to look like it does now. I think the style of the building looks a little bit gothic. Kaisa took me to a park for a little sightseeing tour. I finally got to play in the snow, although there wasn't much of it left. Today has been a really foggy day, I'm sure you can see it yourselves in the pictures we took! Normally, you could see an amusement park on the other side of the lake in the picture, but now... only mist! There was an interesting statue in the park. Kaisa didn't know what it depicted, and we went closer to see why the statue was there. The statue of the lady and two kids appeared to have a very sad story behind it. In September 7th, 1929, there was a raging storm, and a steamboat called Kuru fell over in the lake Näsijärvi near the Siilinkari rock. 138 people perished in the waves. As an empathetic dog I couldn't help getting a few tears in my eyes. To turn my thoughts towards happier things I went climbing on a little heap of snow. At first I thought I saw a ufo in the park... ...but it turned out to be some kind of a stage! That's a shame, it would have been interesting to meet some Martians! After my host had been to the gym, we took a bus home. I got to travel in her huge bag. I already miss you Lisa! I'll keep you posted!
arc-en-ciel Posted Nov 10, 2009, 10:40 am	Kaisa showed me the tiny sauna she has in her apartment. It's very small, only two people fit in comfortably. I wanted to try the sauna, but decided against it when I heard how hot it is in there when the stove is on. I found some euro coins, 10 and 50 cents. All the Finnish euro coins have the same picture of the lion with the sword on the back. Kaisa said she will give me this rubber band as a souvenir. It's ment to be in the wrist, but it was a little too big for my paws... ... so I decided to wear it like this!
arc-en-ciel Posted Nov 20, 2009, 12:24 pm	My host took me with her to the city center and showed me around a little bit before she went to work. I travelled in Kaisa's bag. We went to the bank of the rapids that flows through the city center. You can see some snowflake-shaped christmas lights in this picture, too, although they don't look as impressive as they do in the evenings when it's dark. We were right at the foot of the bridge Hämeensilta, you can see a little bit of it behind me. Tampere is a funny city, there is this huge factory building in the middle of the city center. Verkaranta is a center of arts and crafts, and this pretty building houses among other things a shop where you can buy all kinds of things handmade. We didn't stay outside longer because of the heavy rain. After the sightseeing tour we watched the tv together.
arc-en-ciel Posted Dec 3, 2009, 7:04 am	Kaisa just told me that I'm going to the USA! To be able to continue my adventures overseas I have to take my passport with me. I got the first foreign flag to my passport! I hope I can collect many more flags before going home. My host also put the rubber band she gave me in my souvenir bag. Now it's time for us to say goodbye and head to the post office to start my journey to the States. I can't wait meeting my next host!
JaymeC Posted Mar 6, 2010, 11:43 pm	Dear Mommy, I'm sorry it took so long to let you know I was here, but I am here safe and sound and with many updates to write! We've been very busy. Here I am on the day I arrived! The other toys here right now are Tipu the chick, Tiger Lilly, Penny the kitten and Annie the doll. Hi everyone! I almost didn't make it! Do you see the big tear in the envelope? Its a good thing it was such a thick envelope. And here is the bag my envelope was put in after it was torn. The bag reads: "We Care. Dear Postal Customer, We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service. WE hope this incident did not inconcenience you. We realize that your mail is important to you and that you have every right to expect it to be delivered in good condition. Althought every effort is made to prevent damage to the mail, occassionally this will occur because of the great volume handled and the rapid processing methods which must be employed to assure the most expeditious distribution possible. We hope you understand. We assure you that we are constantly striving to improve our processing methods in order that even a rare occurrence may be eliminated. Please accept our apologies. Sincerely, Your Postmaster." Sounds serious doesn't it? Jayme had just bought some cherry blossoms for her table, so I was able to go take a closer look at them, aren't they pretty? And she says we're off to many adventures soon so I'll have many more updates for you soon! Much love, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 6, 2010, 11:52 pm	Dear Mommy, Jayme says her parents are coming for a visit! Since they're going to be keeping everyone quite busy she thoguht it was only right for us to go take the kids out for some fun before they arrived. We went to two different playgrounds. The first was an outdoor playground, here you can see the playground behind me. And then we bought tickets for something called a Super Slide. Wow its big! Do you see the slide behind me? The children ride down it on sleds. After that the kids still weren't tired enough so we headed to an indoor playground. Here are two pictures from inside. Whew! I hope we don't have too much else to do before her parents arrived or I may be exhausted for the trip... Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 7, 2010, 12:07 am	Dear Mommy, We had one more stop to make before Jayme's parents got here, and that was at the egg farm to stock up some eggs! Its a very neat place, there are lots of animals here to see. And then here is the store itself! They have eggs, but more importantly they have lots and lots of yummy cakes. Mmmm. More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:07 am	Dear Mommy, The first day Jayme's parents visited we went to a place called the Peace Memorial Park. It was a very beautiful spot! Here you can see the cliffs at the edge of the memorial. And here is one of the many memorial walls listing the names of all 200,000+ who died on Okinawa during World War II. Behind me is a view of the memorial and the museum More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:18 am	Dear Mommy, For the second day of Jayme's parents visit we went to a place called Okinawa World. Here I am where you buy your tickets. At Okinawa World we got to go down through this neat cave and see all the neat rock formations inside. It was pretty hard to take pictures, but I hope you like them!. More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:29 am	Dear Mommy, Today we went to a placed call the Pineapple Park. While there we got to rid around in a cart to see all the various plants like palm trees, pineapples, and flowers. Here are some pictures of our ride. We also got to stop by the seashell museum there. I'm sorry for any bluriness, I couldn't use the flash, but I know some came out blurry. Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:38 am	We also took Jayme's parents on a nature walk. There wasn't too much to see on the walk, but here's a view. And the beach at the end was beautiful! More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:43 am	We also went down to Kokusai Street, which is the shopping street here on Japan. Many of the little shops here looked like this. Lots of them sold these shisas, which are the guardians of Okinawa and found in many homes. We went down one of the side streets that happened to be covered, here's what it looked like. More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:53 am	We also got to visit the Chinese Gardens. It was such a quiet calm place. I won't talk too much about it, just let you see the beautiful photos. It was a wonderful place to visit! More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 6:59 am	We also went to this lighthouse, its at a place called Camp Zanpa. Isn't it a beautiful view down the coastline? More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 10, 2010, 7:05 am	The final morning that Jayme's parents were here she took her mom to go get a pedicure. Toys can't get pedicures of course, but we did get to lounge in the chairs, and it is so comfy in there! We tried to take a picture out the window, but it didn't come out. So we had to walk outside and take a picture for you, this is the view from the pedicure place. Isn't it nice? I hope you liked the updates from their visit! I think we all need a real vacation now... Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 29, 2010, 11:05 pm	Dear Mommy, I'm sorry for the slow updates! Jayme's been very, very busy, but I promise we'll have some new ones soon. One day she decided to take off and take us and the kids up to the aquarium! Here you can see the fish we saw. And at the very end we got to see a whale shark! They're very big. Unfortunately we couldn't get a better picture because it was feeding time so they were hanging out near the back of the tank. More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 29, 2010, 11:20 pm	We also go to go spend a few hours relaxing at the beach one day when it was nice out! I helped the kids play in the sand. And all of us toys relaxed on the beach towel for awhile. More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Mar 29, 2010, 11:30 pm	Did you see the news stories about the huge dust storm in Beijing? We didn't have nearly so bad a problem, but we did get some left over dust from the storms. Here's the view from Jayme's apartment. Do you see the fog? That's all dust. Yuck! When you go outside you can taste it a bit. Jayme said the news sources say the dust is safe, but we didn't want to risk it, so we stayed inside unless we had to go out. We did look up the dust storms in China though. We're very glad it wasn't that bad here! More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Apr 12, 2010, 12:20 am	I am sorry I haven't updated more quickly! Jayme's been very busy getting her school work done so even though we've done some neat things we simply haven't had time to sit at the computer to write them out since Jayme's been using it to get her work done. We did take a break to celebrate Jayme's birthday! Can you believe how big a cake her husband got for just 4 people and a few tv's? After that the weather was just too beautiful to stay inside so we took our lunch to go have a picnic at the beach. Isn't it pretty? But Jayme forgot to charge the batteries (d'oh!) so we only got one picture! After that we got back in the car, where thankfully Jayme keeps a battery charger, and drove to a nearby cliffside for a walk. We took some nice pictures along the way. More updates soon! Haggis
JaymeC Posted Apr 13, 2010, 11:25 pm	We were able to celebrate Easter here in Japan! Though the Japanese don't celebrate it, Jayme's family is American so they do. Oddly, the Easter bunny brought Jayme's children Easter bookbags instead of Easter baskets. Jayme said he was probably just trying to make things easier for the move since the bookbags are just the right size for the children to carry their toys on the plane. After the boys checked out their Easter bookbags we went off to find all the eggs the Easter bunny had hidden! We all helped look. Here's the ones I found. Then it was time to open up all those eggs, look at that candy pile! Plenty to go around! After that we took some time to color eggs. First we got out the kit that we were going to use Then we had to set everything up. Eggs, dye, and lots of paper towels to catch the mess. Here's the egg coloring And more And finally the finished product! We were all pretty worn out Another update to come soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Apr 14, 2010, 2:39 am	Jayme decided to take the day before her final exam for us to go out and relax a bit. That's kind of backwards isn't it? But she said the weather was just too nice not to go out, so off we went to the Renassaince Resort. We started out by the indoor pool and watched the kids go down the water slides. They had lots of fun. Us toys relaxed in the lounge chair. From there we went outside to grab a bite to eat. Here you can see the hotel from where we were sitting The kids had chicken nuggets and fries, not very creative but it kept them happy til it was time to go home. There was also an outside pool, but it was a little chilly so no one was in it. Finally we headed down to the beach at the Renassaince for a bit. The children were having fun burying each other so everyone decided to bury me! Don't worry, I was fine, I dug myself out very quickly. After that we headed home. Jayme has to take her final next, and hopefully after that we'll get to relax some and do some more fun updates! Haggis
JaymeC Posted Apr 28, 2010, 11:19 pm	We got to go back to the Peace Park yet again since Jayme decided she wanted to take a drive. Today we went to a new spot there though, they had a pretty neat playground! We also go to stop by the museum. Here's the outside, sadly we weren't allowed to take photos inside More soon, Haggis
JaymeC Posted Apr 28, 2010, 11:29 pm	We were able to visit a very neat site here on Okinawa! We started off by walking up a path with lots and lots of flowers. Finally at the top we found out where we are. Nakagusuku Castle, an UNESCO site here on Okinawa. Here you can see me next to a model of the castle with the actual castle in the background. Here's a better look at the castle. We went up many stairs Finally we were way up at the top! Isn't it a lovely view. Here's the inside of the castle And you can see the Pacific Ocean here. Hopefully we'll get out again soon! Haggis
JaymeC Posted May 9, 2010, 9:47 pm	We got to go visit a fun place called Forest Adventure Park. Unfortunately us tvs only got to see it from the sidelines. Jayme said it was a bit too dangerous for us to go on the course since if we fell down we'd be lost for good and it'd be a little too easy to drop us. We did get to watch her and others while we waited though. Forest Adventure is a zipline and obstacle course. You can see the zipline course behind me. The lines may be a little too small to see clearly, but they go over the valley, which is very deep. Those aren't shrubs below, they're full grown mature, very tall trees. You can see while she didn't want to drop us on accident! To show you what the course is like, here is the practice course. Before you're allowed to do the real course they have you go through the practice course so they're sure you know all the safety precautions. They don't want anyone falling! Finally there's the obstacle course. There's a net that you jump into like tarzan hanging from a rope then you pull yourself up. And then lots of other various obstacles you can walk over. Here's a picture of Jayme, you can see why it would be kind of hard for her to hold us for poses as well since she was holding one for dear life, which was at least pretty funny to watch More soon, Haggis

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