Watery Wonderland

This weekend H, J and I had a weekend so good it was hard to believe. It has been a while since we have been out and about, so we thought with the weather as nice as it was, we should do something special.

In the morning, I was teaching. I painted Eater eggs and made little Easter baskets with all the little kids. Then we had an Easter egg hunt. It was fun, but takes so much energy.

As soon as I was finished, H picked me up in the car and we headed out towards the coast. We had no particular plan in mind, so when we saw a sign for a waterfall we veered off the main road and went in search of it. We had to drive through an area quite thick with trees. It wasn't quite a forest, but it was enough to make it dark as the branches met overhead. After a while we suddenly broke out into the open and to one side of us was a huge mountain and at the bottom of a cliff to the side of the road was a roaring river. As we drove we opened the windows and we could smell the freshness of the spring foliage mixed with the spray off the river. Soon the sound of the river got louder and we saw in front of us one of the largest waterfalls I have ever seen. We parked the car and stood leaning over the fence and we couldn't see where it met the river because of all the spray. Probably because of the snow melting up in the mountains, there was just so much water!

Next to the waterfall was a small, but quite deep cave. At the bottom of the scarily slippy walkway was a set of pools that were the most amazing translucent blue. They almost sparkled and even though they were amazingly clear, it was impossible to see the bottom. It was then that maybe the most amazing part of the day happened. While H and I were

looking for fish in the pool, J wandered off to one side. Suddenly we heard a little, excited scream. We went to see what she had found and saw she had discovered a 5000yen note wedged behind a rock. At first we thought that it might be some sort of candid camera, but then we thought how much fried cheese you could buy with 25 quid and swallowed all morals, snatched it and headed for the surface.

For dinner we headed back to Morioka. When we arrived we had a bit of time to kill before we could eat, so we decided a trip to a coffee shop was in order. When we were walking towards the piano cafe, we bumped into Office Boy from H`s work. It turned out he had come to Morioka to meet his friend, but he had been stood up cause his friend had to work late, so we invited him to come eat with us. We ended up in the little basement restaurant where the Okinawan place used to be. After a good start at the nomihodai, J and I headed off to the toilets and left OB and H alone. We were heading back, but when we saw how deep in conversation they were we scuttled back to the loos and left them to it for a bit longer. And good thing we did too. It turns out H has snagged herself a date for Friday night, so we will be waiting for news on that one!!