My friend Charlie and I were riding our bikes on a road near Shiga village, just outside of Matsumoto. The road goes up into the mountains and it’s really a beautiful road. There were some clouds and snow flurries when we started our journey. We rode up and over one small mountain, then we were on another road that goes up and up and and up and up and up …

Well, we sat down by the side of the road to eat some lunch. We had wasabi oinari, negi-miso onigiri, some oranges and some chocolate. Does it sound like a delicious lunch?? Hey, it was really good and tasty, and the oinari were definitely a little spicy!

As we were eating our lunch and enjoying the beautiful scenery, we noticed that the snow was getting a little heavier. Can you believe that the light snow and flurries became medium snow, and then it was snowing heavily! What should we do??

We got on our bikes and started riding down the hill. The roads were a little slippery so we couldn’t go too fast. Our hands and toes were really C-O-L-D and they were getting wet too!

Once we got into the village, we saw a friendly vending machine. We smiled at Mr. Vending Machine and he smiled back! And, he also took our 240 yen for two hot drinks!! Charlie and I rubbed our hands all over those hot cans and it was like paradise!

We went through the Shiga tunnel, down down down down the hill, then up up up the hill and finally we made it home. We were so happy to go inside a warm house!

(Image source: www.massbike.org)

Hey, I love animals and I’m so happy to see animals when I go outside. There are some big birds, maybe ‘hawks’ or ‘eagles,’ that fly in the sky around our house. It’s sooooooooooooooooo nice to watch them. I wish I could fly!!

There are also some cats that walk around our house. Sometimes they’re friendly and come close to me, but often they’re not so friendly and they don’t come so close. I want to be their friend. What should I do?

Around my neighborhood, there are a lot of dogs. I see many people walking their dogs in the morning. We don’t have a dog. How about you? Do you have any pets — cats, dogs, birds, monkeys, elephants — at your house??

What animals do you see around your house when you go outside?

I’m going to talk about my family.

There’re five peaple in my family. I have a mother,a father, a sister,and a broter.
My mother is very angry!!!!! But sometimes very gently. My father is quietly. And wears grasses.
My sister and my brother is very fun!!!!!

I spend wonderful time everyday!!!!!

Tomoko and I went to the Soba Festival at Matsumoto castle. There were many restaurant ’stalls’ there. They made a lot of soba, and I ATE a lot of soba. It was really good!

I like cold soba and hot soba. Yesterday I had one plate of cold soba and one bowl of hot soba. We also ate some o-yakis!

There were many people at the festival. I think everyone was hungry and wanted to eat a lot of soba!

In English, soba is called ‘buckwheat noodles.’

DID YOU GO TO THE SOBA FESTIVAL IN MATSUMOTO YESTERDAY?