Turning 23 in the Place to Be!

As many of you know, my birthday was May 31st. I was very nervous about having my birthday so far from home, but I have found many friends here and even had met a new wonderful guy a month earlier named Gordon who I have been dating.

Many times I tried to make plans for my birthday but I was told by my friend Meredith that the plans were under control and not to worry about it. "Don't worry about it?" I thought to myself. If anyone knows me, they know, unfortunately, I tend to lean a bit to the worry- wart side of things. But I played along and decided to go with the flow. I didn't really have anything I wanted to do except wear a cute dress and have some drinks with my friends, which I was sure Mere

knew.

As the day grew closer I got more and more excited and nervous about what plans were being made for my big day, if any. My squeeze told me not to make plans for the day because he was planning something and with each day that grew closer he was more and more excited about my birthday. I think that on the final days leading up to the big birthday blowout Gordon was more excited than I was!

The morning finally came and I was woken up like a child on Christmas morning and told to go look for my present. It was early in the morning and I was still tired from going out the night before. Slowly but surely I was able to climb out of bed and look for my present. I didn't get but steps away from the bed before Gordon told me it was in the first bedroom. He was beaming and I knew that it was something special that he had been planning. He was so excited about it and it make me feel so special. I opened the door to the other bedroom and there it was, pink bows and all. A Basket, A Bell, The color: Cherry Red!! I had my very first Japanese style bicycle! I felt like a child getting their first bike and all I wanted to do was go out for a ride and put things in my basket. I opened the card, which played a song to the tune of 'Happy Birthday', and opened my second gift, a beautiful, trendy pair of dangling earrings. I am a lucky gal I think.

After this, Gordon and I watched a movie and then got ready for a special event. He said we were going to be riding our bikes and since we had to be there at one I had a feeling we were going for lunch. We rode a ways to Maiko (which is about 7 km or so) and stopped at an elevator. But this elevator was not like any other elevator; it went diagonal! We ended up at the top of a hill at the Maiko Villa Hotel. As we entered the lobby I knew I was in for a treat. The beautiful chandeliers and the marble floors gave this lobby the feel of class that was not matched by any hotel I had been in during my time in Japan.

We rode the elevator to the 14th floor where we reached our ultimate destination. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, were windows. The view; Akashi Bridge and Awaji Island. (Background information: Akashi Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world. It connects Maiko (near Kobe) to Awaji Island. It is also the most expensive section of Highway in Japan for the three minutes it takes to drive over).

The view was simply breathtaking. We sat down at our table and to my delight the food was french and italian. We couldn't read all of the Japanese, and even though Gordon's Japanese and Kanji are both really good, we still struggled with the choices on the 5 course menu. We decided to get one of both of the choices so we could try everything they had to offer for that lunch course and boy was it delicious. We had everything from good cheese and meats to seafood and beef, even pasta. It was beautiful.

For some reason neither Gordon nor myself had a camera... Someday soon I shall go again and take photos.

After this I went home to meet Mere and Miho before heading to Sannomiya to meet Gordon for drinks. I got home and rode my bicycle to meet them in town. We went back to my apartment and I put on my new black dress! I was very excited about this dress as it took Mere and I an entire day of shopping to find as I am tall for Japan and didn't want a short short dress or a floor length dress.

We hopped on the train to Sanno and as we arrived Mere told me Gordon was running late. She asked me if I wanted to go show our friends Yuki and Simon my dress and have a drink while we waited for Gordon. Since it was right next to the station and the Hobgoblin is my favorite pub I said sure. As we entered the bar I realized that it was all a trick! The girls had planned a party at Hobgoblin for me and all of my friends were there already to celebrate with me!

We had a great time and opened presents and had cake. After the pub, we made our way to Trinity because Gordon was going to be playing in a blues jam session and the band wanted to sing to me, plus we all wanted to see him play. :) But before heading to Trinity we stopped by the horrible Mickey D's for a shaka shaka chicken (if you don't know this please look it up on youtube. There you can find instructional videos....no joke).

I am one lucky girl. Minus the McDonald's!!

Photo Fun!

I can't upload a ton of photos on here... so I am going to start putting photos on Flickr. Please check the link! For now, just more Golden Week photos ! :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39531638@N05/?saved=1

Golden Week

Okay, more from where I left off. So sorry, yet again, for my incompetence when it comes to consistently writing anything.

As we were waiting for the two car train that ran to Aoshima once every two hours, a small elderly man made eye contact and was beginning to approach us. For me this has become very normal, as it is not uncommon to have someone walk right up to you, stare and then finally walk away. But this man was different. He was the cutest thing I have every seen. He just came up and asked us in English is we were American; just like that, plain as day English. He told us that he was an English teacher and had been for many decades and that he never saw foreigners in those parts of Japan and he was so happy that we were there to be able to talk to him.

After a few moments of talking to him the train was approaching and we thought we were all going the same direction so we invited the little man to jump on board with us for a nice long chat on the way to our next destination. However, he was very disappointed to see that he was, in fact, heading in the direction opposite us. We said our goodbyes and he handed us his business card and we leapt onto the train just before it pulled away from the station. We didn't want to miss our train and wait another two hours for the next one in this sleepy town, but that man sure put a bounce in our steps.

Next we were headed for the Udo Jingu Shrine. This place was not in any guidebook, on any map, and even the locals didn't seem to know of it's existence. I just hoped we could find it before the sun set. We hopped of the train in a town that looked promising. We knew that we would have to switch to a bus line to make it to the shrine and we thought this was the place to do it. However, at the time, my Japanese was very VERY weak and Anthony's was almost non-existent. The man at the ticket window knew no English but I was able to understand a little about what he was saying. After a quick bite to eat at the horrible death to society named McDonald's we jumped on a bus and headed for the bus terminal. There, the people were very friendly and tried their hardest to direct us to the correct bus and tell us which number stop to get off at. As the bus pulled away from the station we had a ticket in hand and an idea of the number we needed to get off at, but as we traveled deeper on the rural Japan Coastline we realized that there was not any civilization around this shrine. There was nothing.

We got off a stop too early and decided to just walk it because the next bus wasn't going to come for an hour. I stopped for a quick second to pose with a vending machine. It's always good to know that even in the middle of nowhere, you can still get your ice cold Coca-Cola.

We finally found a sign that we tried to decipher and decided it was for the shrine. Up the hill we hiked and there it was, the most amazing cliff-side, built in a cave, shrine I have ever seen. The shrine itself was down some stairs on the cliff by the ocean inside of a cave. There you could buy little clay stones to try to throw into a hole filled with water on one of the rocks. Apparently this is a ritual for newlyweds for happiness and fertility. We tried our hand at the stone throwing tradition and I got 2 stones in. Anthony 0. I have talent.

From here we got an ice cream and headed back down to our bus stop for the next hour bus.

What an amazing place!

The next morning we were off for Kagoshima. This was by far my favorite place in the trip. Just on the train approaching the station you could see the island Sakurajima. It has an active volcano on it and is accessible by ferry only. It was beautiful and puffs of smoke were coming out of the top of it. I couldn't wait to take a ferry and head over.

After we arrived we found our hotel for the night. Despite the fact that it was a little sketchy and small, it was going to be okay, especially for just sleeping. (Minus the big roach that crawled out of the drawer, Anthony killed that). EWE.

The next day we took the ferry over to Sakura jima. It was amazing! Once you got off the twenty minute ferry ride, there were so many things you could do to explore. There were numerous hot springs and look out spots. There were also lava rocks and even a dinosaur park! (We missed out on the dinosaur park).

We opted to rent some bicycles and check out a lookout point for the volcanos. The sun was shining that day and the weather was the warmest I had felt since Florida. The heat felt good on my skin as we rode out bicycles in the breeze up to the lookout point. After we explored the area we decided to relax and go to an outdoor foot onsen. It is a small stream hot spring that is for visitors to soak their feet and legs in. I normally detest anything that has to do with feet, but this was okay. :)

We retired to our hotel so we could get an early start to Kumamoto in the morning.

To get to Kumamoto we took the shinkansen, which took only one hour but set us back quite a bit of cash. I was already running over budget and still had a few days left to go, but I figured logically, I would probably never be in Kyushu again.

When we arrived I was starting to feel as though I was catching Anthony's sickness. He had come to visit with a nasty flu-like cold. (maybe some of the first cases of the Swine Flu in Japan, not jokingly, it then spread to all of Kobe and Tokyo; where we both live). I started to feel light headed and feverish and was having a miserable time in the heat.

I stuck it out for a while longer so we could explore a little and visit the castle and a samurai residence. They were both equally interesting and quite crowded. After that, we went for some ramen and I tried to sleep, quite unsuccessfully. I was restless all night and had a horrible fever. In the morning we decided to head to Nagasaki via ferry and train, and then head back on the Shinkansen a day early due to financial reasons and my deteriorating health.

Arrive in Nagasaki was not exactly the best of days. Anthony and I were tired, sick, and aggravated with each other, and to top it all off, it was raining.

We did the usual here; visited the Holocaust Memorial museum, Peace Park, and the Oura Catholic Church. The museum was a bit depressing on top of everything else and I felt incredibly uncomfortable not only being from America and being there, but also because I had to blow my nose every 5 minutes. I try to not draw too much attention to myself, especially at a place like this, but it was unavoidable.

We took the train back to Kobe and concluded our trip on a slight down note. However, overall, the trip was a fantastic adventure and I am glad I went! Enjoy!