Q3 2006 part 1

Greetings to All of you ,

Here we are with another update. As usual writing  this story has taken more time than anticipated, but hey…..Alishan is out there Cruising!

That PETD (see Q2) was made into an ETD, July 17^th, but can you believe it, just that day Fukuoka got directly hit by typhoon #13 (of all numbers) also known as Shanshan (as in Alishan). So we had to stay put for a few more days. But then we did it.

We dropped the bow and stern lines and sailed away.

See here a small selection of our last months in Fukuoka and our bye-bye parties….eh bye-bye pictures …eh bye-bye party-pictures.

Wow! Were those last few weeks tough, but we enjoyed every minute.

 It all started in early July with the Hakata Yamakasa, Fukuoka’s biggest and most exciting festival, where teams run around the streets half naked, carrying huge floats depicting all sorts of caricatures from Japan’s recent and not so recent history at 5:00 in the morning. (See Q3 2005) Like last year Jaap took part again, knowing it might be for the last time….

This was water team number 1. Marijke, Noriko (the cats’ vet) and her hospital’s nurses kept themselves busy cooling down all those runners and carriers with buckets full of ice cold water. What a happy faces!

In the mean time, Jaap was cruising the streets of Fukuoka the proper way.  

It was a big honor to be chosen to sit on top of that Yama!

Okay, okay, it was only a short stretch and on just an ordinary practice day, but still…  Not everybody ever gets a change to make it to the “top”, let alone a foreigner…

So special thanks to the guys of Doi Nagare.

July was our last month in the J.O.B. force after 11 years of workworkwork. However, we loved our jobs for 99%. Looking back, we missed only a very few days. Something we can’t say about our work history in Holland or NZ .  

Here we go with some shots from our work related friends at the endless sayonara parties:

At the daycare.    Ojichan & Obachan…..and staff. Thanks for the good times.

  

                                    Our sweetest kids. Aren’t they cute!!

                                            Marijke and some of her rabbits.

                                Hmm, they grow up and become like our own;-))                                      A day in the park at the beach, time to relax and have fun.

Some of them we’ve known for nearly 10 years. It was fun to see them growing up. Saying farewell was hard.

Okay, okay so far not much cruising related topics, but we made so many, many friends in Fukuoka. After all we were there for over 11 years.

It’s our “furusato”.

           

 Here Papa and Mama-rin, first time we met was 17 years ago. Thanks for everything.

                                     

           The Party…eh Wadaiko (Japanese drum) members. They can stir up a drum!

                                           

                     The girls of the gym. Will we stay in shape without you?

                                   The Food Specialists…eh... our marathon team.

 From now on we will have to make those road miles without you; that’s gonna be tough. (topic food is no problem ;-))

                            

 Noko Island (English) Tea Time ladies

And our Meinohama Gyogyo Kumia  family bye-bye party:

                   There were many happy faces and yes, there was plenty of food.

Thanks Party support team. We had a super time, and we’ll miss you all.

.

89 year old great-grandpa Nishijima, mastering the trics of a computer game.

Never too old to learn!

And who is this lady?