grammar note

Why do we get in a canoe, a taxi, or a car, but get on a bus, a ship, or a jet?

Who knows? A student asked me this once, and since then I’ve come up with a few possibilities.  

Perhaps we get in a canoe because once we are in it we pretty much fill it up, where as a ship has lots of room for other things.

Perhaps we get in a canoe and a car because we step into them from above.  It implies concealment within something, to be surrounded.   For example, If mom tells us to go to bed and we get ‘on our bed’ we’ll likely still get in trouble when she comes down the hall and sees us sitting or even laying on our bed.  We’re not actually ‘in bed’ until we are under the covers.  

By this logic, we get on a bus, a plane or a ship because we have to climb up onto them.  In the case of the ship, we walk up a gangplank, for a plane we use the terminal ramp, and for a bus, we climb up stairs.

More examples:  Huckleberry fin and Jim got on a raft and floated down the Mississippi River.  The raft was small, but it had no sides, and there was nothing to get ‘into,’ (except for the lean-to built on the raft, which is only part of the raft and not the raft itself.)

Callan Loves trains, especially kind Japanese people play peek-a-boo with him like this man did (for about ten minutes).

Callan loved having grandma and Grandpa Franklin to play with (and Joey and Melissa didn't mind the break either.

We couldn't have chosen a more perfect day for coming to Miyajima in February. On some of the back streets there was the tiniest amount of residual snow, but the sun was warm and the sky was clear.

As we approached Miyajima Island the ferry went out of it's way to pass along in front of the gate so we could get a good shot of it. The roundtrip train and ferry from Hiroshima station was 1140 yen (about 10 dollars american).

Melissa told me she is tired of boring pictures, so she decided to hug this stone lantern.

This latest version of the great red gate (it is actually orange) was built in 1875, but something similar to it has been 'floating' off the coast of Miyajima since the 12th century.

For three dollars each we were able to enter this shinto shrine called Itsukushima shrine. It is built on stilts and was founded in 593 A.D. Directly in Front of it, out in the water, is the big gate, and at low tide you can walk out to it. Behind is a very beautiful pagoda, painted orange to match the shrine. (As far as I have noticed, painted pagoda's like this are rare).

The great red gate in in Miyajima is supposed to be one of the three most picturesque sites in Japan.

At this shrine on a hill in Miyajima you can see Hiroshima Bay, Downtown Hiroshima, and The great Red Gate peaking through the trees. it was very bright and very cold.

Grandpa Franklin and I took some very steep little steps up the side of a hill and found this view of the bay in front of Itsukushima shrine and the great red gate.

This baby dear was attracted by some oranges we were eating on a break in this park in Miyajima.

Our trip to Miyajima included going to a shingon shrine where we found these little statues. This is the 'I'm sorry' statue and is one of several around this tree that represented a different virtue. One was the 'thank you' statue, one was the forgiveness statue, one was honesty, etc.

This tree is more than 1000 years old and has such large heavy branches that they must be supported by thick wooden posts.

Here is an example of some of the wood working done at these temples.

It's hard to get everyone to look at the camera at once, as shown here in these next to photographs.

On Friday we went to an all you can eat Japanese Barb-b-que restaurant with a grill right in the table that we cooked our meet in. They also had an acceptable salad bar, good japanese grub, and some decent desserts.

The first hundred fifty steps of the Konpirasan hike take you through dozens and dozens of little shops perched on either side of the ascending stairs. It doesn't really get pretty until the second 100 or so steps.

On Friday Night we drove to Takamatsu to see the big city from an observation tower on the thirtieth floor of an office building near takamatsu station. By the time we got to the top, Callan was out. This was the first of several odd-hour naps for our little trooper during Grandma and Grandpa Franklin's visit.

You can see Mom Franklin's head in the bottom left hand corner of this picture. She was counting steps to see how many she would have to do before she could rest again. We were all pretty sore after the trip (incidently this is about 40 of the 750 or so steps we climbed). You can see Grandpa Franklin at the top of the steps holding his coat and Callan and Joey off to the side.

On Friday we went to the top of Konpirasan, a famous temple site near our home that is arrived at by climbing nearly 800 steps. This turtle statue was near the top and Callan just had to take a rest.

Wacky Melissa at the start of the konpirasan hike.

This is one of the buddhist temples on the way to the top of Konpirasan. We ate a snack out in front (mandarin oranges, m&m's, and handi-snacks.)

Other times Callan likes to use his little potty

Even when the bathroom is cold, Callan is willing to try out the big potty.

Grandpa decided playing Joey was too hard so he moved on to the next generation.

"Sorry Grandpa, Checkmate! And no two out of three!"

Callan has studied Bobby Fisher's facial expressions in order to get the chess concentration look down.

Another shot of the famous tree in Zentsuji temple.

Pilgrims that walk the 88 temples on Shikoku come in many shapes and sizes, but most dress in at least part of this traditional outfit and walk the sixty day trip.

One of our first stops with Mom and Dad Franklin was to Zentsuji temple, birth place of Kukai (Kobo Daishi) the founder of Japan's Shingon sect of Buddhism. This tree is more than 100 years old and Kukai himself wrote about it.

On February 8th Joey picked up a very worn out Mom and Dad Franklin from the Marugame Train Station. We were so glad to have them here! Joey had to work Thursday the 9th but we were able to go to our favorite Udon shop. Yum Yum!

I hit my head again

I hit my head again on the low doorway into our bedroom, and this time it about knocked me out.  I was bouncing into our room again yesterday and hurrying to get ready to leave for work and I smacked the top of my head on the face of the lentil of the door.  As I hit, lights flashed in my head as if a camera had just gone off, and I fell straight down onto the floor.  Melissa and Callan came running into the hallway to see what all the noise was about and found me lying on my back, holding my head, in a fit of pain induced chuckling.  Melissa looked at the doorway and noted there was a patch of hair stuck to the wood (like I need to lose anymore) and pointed out the two parallel red gashes on the crown of my head. It didn’t bleed much and only gave me a minor goose egg.  It has been almost twenty four hours now and I can’t even tell the wound is there, but if I lift my eyebrows, or accidentally brush my hand over the top of my head I get a dull stinging reminder.  

Then later that night I was heading to bed down a very dark hallway after brushing my teeth and I ran into the bathroom doorway.  I QUIT. Either I’m getting wheel chair for the house, or I’m remodeling the doorways. Someone send me a circular saw and some duct tape!