When we got back home Roxanne showed her the 'cubby'.
Tonight the kids wanted to show Mamiko the dairy. Im not sure what she thought of the noisy smelly process ;-).
Roxanne, Callum and Andrew are very keen to show her everything and excitedly pointed out things of interest - including the pig.
Mamiko has been teaching us some Japanese so we know the pig is 'Butah.' Mamiko gave us some lovely gifts tonight, souveniers from Japan - gorgeous placemats which I have put on the wall, there is no way im letting the boys get hold of them! And a cute little incense burner pig - Co butah (little pig!) and some floating leaf shaped candles. We are very proud and delighted with these lovely things.
As today was a holiday, took the opportunity to take Mamiko to the local wildlife park
and afterwards to see the 12 Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge. Callum and Andrew were playing up a bit by then so we gave up and went home for some food!
Mamiko patted a Kangaroo which had a very large joey which amazed us by wriggling back into its mums pouch - what a stretch!
and I dared to feed an Emu (for the first time!)
Roxanne had a riding lesson in warrnambool this morning so Mamiko had a chance to jump up on a horse!
Afterwards we had lunch at Mc Donalds and went home via the coast. The boys were asleep when we passed "Bay of Islands" so Roxanne and Mamiko went to have a look in peace! :-)
Had a lot of trouble downloading pictures for a while, so my plan to regularly update hasnt happened. So here are a few pictures of Mamiko with the kids. She has been a part of our family this month, playing with the children and bringing a little bit of Japan into our home...
We have tasted Japanese tea, made beautiful origami, and the kids were delighted to find they could have a picture of picachu on their sandwiches!
We were also thrilled to receive a beautiful flower print cloth and a postcard from Mamiko's mother!
June 2002
The whales have returned to Warrnambool! We took Mamiko to Logansd beach to see them and were lucky enough to spot one in close to the shore...
Mamiko will be moving on to her next host family soon and we shall miss her very much. We are very lucky to have had her spend time with us and hope to see her often in the future
Love from The Alexander Family