When it comes to the blog, we were indeed lazy. However, we have been incredibly busy with the school, as well as many projects that feed into the school, witch ultimately enrich it, as well as the students who participate in it.
Since the last post in around mid 2021, we used the hot summer to begin blogging about the 88 temples in the Kojima area. This blog is in English (translated largely from my wife's maternal grandfather's book) and is a good resource for those interested. The blog can be accessed here.
This year we will start the temple blog again, but it will be later than last year as I had to return to New Zealand for a month at the beginning of summer.
This picture shows the shadow from a statue from the first of the 88 temples!
During the autumn and winter I worked on a huge project to restore an Edo Period house on our property.
This involves re-roofing the old tile area, repainting the tin roof, and rebuilding the rotted sections that supported the tile roof.
We hope to start a shojin ryori part-time restaurant here in the coming years, which again will hopefully intertwine with the school's activities.
Improving the grounds required reshaping the land, which took a lot longer than I thought.
In this photo, the digger is positioned to dig accumulated dirt that has partly buried the beautiful kura that we would like to use for a cafe/honey shop/bread shop in the near future!
Again we expect that these projects will directly impact students and the school in ways that showcase real living English. That is they will link to our BnB businesses, which draw in English-speaking tourists from all over the world!
We look forward with great excitement to the next few years, growing and sharing the school and other projects with you!