Matsumoto

We returned to Iijima from Hiroshima on Tuesday evening adn decided to try this little tempura restaurant in town that Ike had never been to. It was really nice and the food was delicious. The owner was surprised that Ike has lived here for ten months and this was the first time he had been there. He even gave us these really nice ceramic cups as gifts. The next day (Wednesday) Ike had to teach and Pete and I hung around the apartment and recuperated from the weekend. :-) We did manage to walk down into town to do some grocery shopping at least. That evening we went to eat at this place in town where you cook your food right at the table yourself. It's an all you can eat place and Ike ordered all sorts of things. I actually tried squid (which was like chewing rubber!) and pig intestines, which just tasted nasty. Other than those two things, everything else was very good.

The next day, Thursday, Pete and I took Bethany's suggestion (and with Ike's urging) and rode the train to Matsumoto, which is a town about two hours away. I was really nervous about doing this without Ike since Pete and I don't know any Japanese, but since we had the rail passes and could ride free we decided we should take advantage of this. Ike had very detailed directions with times and we had to transfer trains two times on the way up, but we did it! There is an amazing castle in Matsumoto that we went to see and it was so worth it. When we arrived a woman who is a volunteer gave us a tour of the castle explaining everything in English. We did some shopping on the way back to the station and then caught the train back and made it home. We were so proud of ourselves! :-)

In the evening we met some of Ike's friends that we met last week for dinner. We went to a sushi place a few towns over. The sushi comes by the tables on conveyer belts and you just take off what you want. You are charged per plate. You can also order stuff off the menu and it arrives on a little Shinkansen (bullet train). By the end of the meal the five of us had stacked up 60 plates!

Today we will get packed up and in the afternoon Pete and I will go with Ike to the elementary school. I'm really looking forward to that and I hope I will be allowed to take pictures there. After that we leave for Tokyo for the weekend. We haven't figured out what all we're going to do there besides go to a baseball game and shop. We are still working on that. On Monday we catch our plane home! It's hard to believe we've been here for almost two weeks already. It has been an amazing vacation and we've seen some great things. But the best part has been spending time with Ike. It makes me feel better, though, after seeing how much he loves it here, and I can understand why he does. This little town is so beautiful, and the people are so nice.

Okay, I'm off to pack. I might get a chance to write an entry over the weekend, but if I don't then I will when I return home. See you all in a few days! :-)