ADVENTURE WEEKEND UPDATE:
On Saturday we went up to Takeda castle ruins, with plans for a bento picnic. It was about 33 degrees out (much cooler than usual), but we couldn`t find the turn off to drive up, so we hiked. I was actually OK. My friend Maeva, however, had only had a glass of fanta for breakfast and when we got to the top, she promptly started puking. It was so beautiful though - the only thing left of the ruins are the walls - and there were so many levels!!!! I was climbing around like a monkey. Finally Maeva felt better and we had just taken off the top of our bento boxes when the first raindrops fell. I started to POUR and we were no where near the path so we sucked it up and hollered "singin in the rain" at the top of the mountain - it was an asian "sound of music" thing. we were soaked by the time the rain eased up, so we headed back to the car and drove back to Maeva's place to eat the bento. when I finally got home I decided to put together my earthquake kit - hey - you never know. I had just finished and was watching a movie when an earthquake hit - about the same strength as the one in Tacoma. I sat there wondering if I should seek cover, but it wasn`t getting any stronger so I rode it out, all the while watching my water glass - it was sloshing about like a little ocean. I was happy that I had my kit prepared in any case...
the next morning, we drove to Himeji - the nearest city to us. it is only about 70 km away, so we figured that we`d get there in an hour, go to Starbucks and then go to the opening of a new international centre. The roads were so bad, and the drivers so crazy - I almost got hit a few times (try defensive driving on the other side of the road - my first instinct was to swerve out of the way, but the funny thing is that my urge was to swerve into oncoming traffic...). When we got to Himeji (2 hours later) we had to hurry to find parking and grabbed the first place we saw - we had to park in a weird elevator thing - once we got out, it lifted our car to another level so that another car could park immediately underneath. for this experience we ended up paying about $30 to park for 5 hours on a sunday - OUCH!!! The concert was great (think - Japanese kids dressed in german costumes doing the sound of music) and the view of the castle was amazing (himeji is known for it`s castle ("the white egret") which sits on top of a hill overlooking the city - it is apparently the oldest surviving castle (there are others but they`ve been reconstructed). On the way back we went to MacDonalds to have some cheap food - everything tastes exactly the same - it`s spooky!! Especially because I went into Mr Donut and had the worst donut ever (at least I didn`t try the curry glazed variety). At MacDonalds, I noticed I had a flat tire, so I had to go get that changed at the Esso station down the road. I realized that I had no cash on me - and no one pays by bank card here, or visa. There was a bank machine, but it closed at 6pm. so, I was stuck driving all the way back on my spare tire. What an adventure!!!!