My four day weekend

I had a four day weekend this weekend. On Friday I went to Tokyo to see some things that I hadn't yet gotten to. This red-brick building used to be all of Tokyo station I guess. People were out there taking pictures of it like crazy.

On Saturday I tried to go see the Imperial Palace but it was closed for construction or something. This is one of the buildings from outside the walls. That's the moat around there.

Then I came back to Handa Saturday afternoon for Becky's first of two birthday parties this weekend. The one on Saturday night was just for Handa people. We went to a bar and had our own little room and ate grilled chicken on sticks!

After that Becky and I walked to Mos Burger and I finally got to take a picture of their slogan.

Hamburger is my life! I feel that!

Sunday night, Becky had another birthday party. This one was in Nagoya and for her foreign friends. We went to a cool Moroccan restaurant first and ate and drank for a long time. Then we did lots of other stuff for the rest of the night.
This is everyone at dinner.

That was it I guess. This weekend went by way too fast!

Other photos:
The Tokyo Central Post Office











Tokyo financial district from the Imperial Palace's garden














Some rainy rice paddies between Handa and Nagoya

this past weekend

I went to Hiroshima on Sunday morning with five other girls I know. We got there around eleven, dropped our bags at the place we were staying in, and got on another train for Miyajima (I think it means 'shrine island'). We took a ferry across the water and to the actual island where the big, orange gate-thing is.
Here's a picture of the gate as we approached the island from the ferry:

The shrine gate is in the water, but since the tide was low, we could walk out to it. There were lots of people digging for oysters all around it. Here's another picture up close, and you can see some oyster hunters in the background:

Then we walked around some more and saw these ladies with weird hats doing some dances:

This town looked pretty cool. We walked along this road for a while and then climbed up a big, big hill to get to the "rope way" which actually meant cable cars to the tops of the hills.

Being up really high looking at all the islands and water was really cool.

Then we walked around some more, saw lots of temples, pagodas and statues. It was a really neat place and it would have been easy for us to have spent the entire day there.
But around four or five o'clock, we went back to Hiroshima city. We saw a festival happening from the bus as we were going home so we decided to check it out. I think it was a summer festival. I didn't know there were so many rivers in Hiroshima.

We also walked past the government building of which a large part was blown away by the atomic bomb that fell there.

All the girls at the festival were wearing their summer-time yukatas so the whole scene was really bright and festive. There were lots and lots of food stalls all over the place. We ate lots of good food there.

Then it was time for us to do some puri-kura. This involves a bunch of people cramming into a photo booth and taking some pictures, then decorating them. I think this one was our best:

The next day I went to Tokyo to see a musician play in Shibuya. It was pretty awesome. Then, I left Tokyo at seven in the morning on Tuesday to be at work here by noon. It was a really really fun weekend, but pretty exhausting and expensive.
Sometime next month I think we're going to visit (and possibly conquer) Mt. Fuji.