The week began wonderfully. We got to spend our P-day last Saturday with the Mannings, the oldest daughter of President and Sister Baird, her husband Craig, and their four great children, Mckay, Abby, Josie and Kimball. We drove to Matsumoto, a place we had really never spent much time at. We enjoyed a wonderful museum dedicated to illustrators of children's books, especially Chihiro, a delightful Japanese artist. The museum is named after her and half of it contains her wonderful artwork. The other half has amazing illustrations from children's books around the world. It is in a park setting, and we wandered around and enjoyed it immensely. Sorry, no photos.
Then we went to Matsumoto Castle, also called Crow Castle because it is nearly all black. I thought it was beautiful. It also has a beautiful red bridge. We got to have an English speaking tour guide at the castle, and the history is fascinating. It's a castle built on flatland, so it is surrounded by a mote. Lee took lots of pictures at the red bridge with the black castle in the background for the Manning's Christmas Picture. We got some of ourselves, too. But sorry, no pictures for this blog.
On Tuesday, we took note that it was our half-way mark. I was going to say, "celebrated," but we didn't celebrate. We just noticed that we are half way along on our mission.
On Thursday, Sister Kondo planned another full day for us. It is the height of fall colors right now, and the trees are dripping with color, especially up in the mountains. So that's where we went. We enjoyed a morning tour of a lovely little town with canals filled with the biggest koi I've ever seen. Beautiful fish. We visited one of only four Japanese candle shops left. This one was a 7th generation candle maker. Both the candles and their way of making them are completely different from anything I've seen before. Sister Kondo and Sister Morita stopped at a "morning market," and loaded up on fresh veggies. I got my first taste of crisp, delicious persimmon fruit. We saw a stately ginko tree that was over 300 years old, and a juniper that was over 800 years old. It was a lovely town. Sorry, no photos.
Then we returned to Falls, where we went when Jesselah visited us. We climbed all the way to the top of the 13-fall hike, which was quite steep, and enjoyed a grassy meadow with a hill, on which were some of the most vibrantly red and orange-leafed trees I've ever seen. Lee took pictures for half an hour. We hiked back down and had lunch on a rock with Daddy Long Leg spiders that make the ones in the US look like their babies. But lunch was yummy, provided by our amazing Sister Kondo and Sister Morita, who never cease to surprise us with wonderful new Japanese tastes and treats. Sorry, no photos.
Then we drove the steepest, most winding, incredibly narrow road I have ever seen (or held my breath on) up into the breathtaking mountains near Takayama. We stopped at a parking lot. I looked up to see a hill just a short walk away where I was sure we would go to get a marvelous view. But no, it was to check in and pay a little--to take another hike. Up. So we walked 45 minutes, but did see some more fall splendor. We came out as it was getting close to sunset. We then headed home. I'll bet you'd like to see those fall colors. Sorry.......
On Friday we hustled at work to make up for missing a day. And Friday evening, we came home a bit later than normal, dropped off my purse, Lee's camera and computers, and a few items from work, and headed out for our regular date night dinner out. We were tired, so we chose a restaurant fairly close that we like, ate and returned home within an hour and a half, tops.
I walked right into the room where we have our chest of drawers, hangers for our clothing, and another little vanity chest. I stopped. All the drawers in our chest of drawers were open. "Did we leave our drawers open today?" I asked Lee. We never do that! Then I turned around and saw the drawers of the little vanity open, too. Lee saw that, too, and said, "Could we have had an earthquake that we didn't feel?" Then I walked into the kitchen to see if my purse was still on the chair where I had hung it. Well, you know the rest.
Someone broke in from a sliding glass door in our kitchen area. They took my purse, Lee's camera bag with nearly all of his equipment but the tri-pod, and his briefcase with his computer and ipod. They left my PC on the desk (thank Heaven!!). My purse had $250 cash, a pair of sun glasses I just bought recently that were quite expensive, my drivers license, my credit cards, my ID card for Japan, and numerous smaller items that I will miss.
I got online within two hours of when we had left home. They had already used both my credit and debit cards and spent well over $3500. I got them stopped. The police were here for about two hours. They got finger prints, for what it is worth. We were up until after midnight trying to figure out how to "pick up the pieces." And we have spent the day working to recover from the effects of the theft. We have secured our doors better than they were before. We have talked to most of the places we need to talk with. Lee is now at the Mac store figuring out what is best to do.
Some of the purchases that were made were for expensive computer games, so we are hoping it isn't a theft ring that sells all of our personal information. I guess we will see. Mostly, we have tried to count our blessings. It wasn't a violent crime. We are fine. We can still survive with one computer. The camera equipment was insured.
So the worst thing: Sorry. No pictures. Of anything except what I've put on the blog since we came to Japan. We are very sad about that. (Well, we do have a few pictures on Lee's iphone.) So that is our greatest loss, and we hope it will remain our greatest loss of our entire mission, which is now---half over.