Our weekend away Part 1

CAJ had a long weekend for American Thanksgiving, with Friday off. So we took advantage of that by going away, but not camping. We stayed in a very nice little cabin.

We drove down in the middle of the day on Friday and it was warm in the car with a beautiful clear blue sky. I had pangs of regret that we weren't going camping. But they didn't last when we arrived. Our cabin's location was a bit exposed and the wind cold and nasty at 3.30 when we arrived. I was very glad to not be putting up a tent and sleeping in it all night with flapping canvas all around.

But the view was magnificent! I'll post more photos of it tomorrow (photos from my "big" camera). I saw a sunset and sunrise from the area near the cabin. It's justifiably a popular viewing area of the iconic mountain.

We watched the sun set and then travelled down the mountain to the city to spend the evening with missionary friends from the UK. It was them we'd come to visit for the weekend. Their eldest son graduated with our eldest son in June and we've enjoyed getting to know them over the last few years. We also visited them 18 months ago (see this post) on our way back to Tokyo after our Kansai camping tour. They live in a very beautiful part of Japan.

The next morning, I got up early to see the sun rise (6.30) and then went back to bed. Three hours later I got up and joined the family for breakfast (another advantage of having older kids). Four of us then climbed a nearby mountain "peak" (only about 300m above the cabin) and were rewarded with this view.

For lunch on the Saturday we drove with our friends down to this fishing village: Heda. The view across the bay of Mt Fuji from the peninsula is very impressive.

Heda is a fishing village and there are signs for crab all over the place. If we were willing to pay over AU$100, we could have eaten one of these Spider Crabs (these ones were still alive). These grow as large as four metres across and some of these giant ones were prominently displayed in restaurants.

Our friends have been praying for this town for several years and have been going there monthly in recent times to lay the groundwork for what they hope will be a church plant in the coming years. This Friday they're going there with some of their church members to advertise for a Christmas event in the town that they're planning.

The view from Heda's wharf area.

We rambled along the beach and the boys climbed around on the rocks on the other side of the peninsula. After watching the sun go down we drove back to our friends' house along the coastline (very windy road). We enjoyed the evening with them (which included board games) before going back up to the cabin.

Here's what our cabin looked like on the inside. A simple open plan with a kitchenette at one end and bunks at the other (with a toilet).

We could only see the tip of Mt Fuji from our cabin, but the view across Suruga Bay was pretty impressive on its own.

On Sunday we spent the morning at the church our friend's work at. It's a small, rural church. Our family of five was about a quarter of the attendees on Sunday. They bring their own lunches to eat after the service and this photo was taken at the end of lunch.

We didn't go very far for this weekend—160 km—but with Tokyo traffic it took over three hours to get there and twice as long to get back. One reason why we seldom go away for the weekend, because driving back in on a Sunday takes energy and seems to negate the rest gained by being away.

But it was worth it this time. We got away from all our responsibilities here and explored another corner of Japan for a short time. We got to see some pretty amazing views, but even better, got to spend time with friends.

It was good, too, to worship at their small church and be reminded that most churches in Japan are like this. But also to remember the value of what we do: if CAJ didn't exist, this family wouldn't be able to continue to work in this rural area while their boys are in high school. So in a small way we're their support team, enabling this small church to continue to have a workers.

Our route home. Yesterday afternoon it was faster than the other route indicated, according to Google maps, but it took over six hours, including a short toilet break plus a longer dinner break and dropping off one of our passengers (our son's former classmate) on his campus—International Christian University.