Photo filled update of Doom.... and stuff.

Ok, so......
I've got a ton of pictures to upload and I'm hoping that the connection will stay up long enough to complete them. Out of the 600 and something photo's that I've taken since my last batch, I chose 54 to share. I'm uploading them all to my facebook album (It automatically compresses the files so it doesn't take too terribly long to upload, even on this connection). I will however share and talk about a few of them here for your convenience and my own satisfaction of being able to write about them. As always, Click the image to embiggen.

To start with, This is a shoe box that is in the entryway to Yoko's house.
The implications of this shoe box in Japan are probably significant and certainly confusing.

These are the three girls that we had from Singapore. They were only here for three days, but they were a ton of fun. It took me two days to get their names straight though. (The girls from left to right: Cindy, Ashleigh, Cassandra (I'm pretty sure I got that right))
As you may have guessed, this photo needs a bit of back story. In case you don't know me personally, I'm fairly strong. A lifetime of lifting plants and pottery for my mother's business, combined with my size allows me to lift up quite a bit without too much effort. This is apparently not common in Asia. It seems any time I pick up something heavy, the people watching see it as some kind of amazing feat of strength. (I have actually been called Hercules since I've been here) In general I tend to think of women as being fairly light (at least for my standards) but Asian women tend to be smaller then the American girls that I'm used to, so I find them incredibly light. I found myself wondering how hard it would be to pick up all 3 of these girls at once. They didn't think I could do it. They were convinced that they were too heavy. I thought otherwise. They were kind enough to let me test it. (And of course I wanted to get it on camera.) Although the picture doesn't show it, I am lifting all three of these girls off the ground. One of them is latched onto my back, and I'm lifting the other two with one arm each. They seem to be enjoying themselves, but I can't be sure....

The cherries are getting riper and riper every day
Some of the cherries are actually ripe now, this picture is a week or so old. We have had a few samples and they are delicious. The orchard is also now accepting customers. We had our first ones yesterday.

This is just a nice cloud shot I took.
We had spent all day working in the grapes at the base of this picture, so this was a nice little reward after the days work.

We had a nice lunch in the shade with a view of Fuji.
We also had a lawn chair that I took full advantage of. (There was a nice breeze going on too)

Once again my beard became a temporary home for a few flowers.
It was a group endeavor.

Same day as the last two pictures. Yet again, a nice view of Mt. Fuji.
This one was taken from the balcony on the second floor of Kazu's house in the morning, before breakfast.

That's all for now, If you want more check out my Facebook album. (Now up to the 2oo picture maximum. I don't know if i got lucky and met the exact number, or if it deleted some of the old ones. Let me know if you notice any pictures missing.)

~Daniel