How It's Going

I had a little break the first week of May, my first vacation in about 3 months. My girlfriend and I did some travelling about the country and I met her parents. Before the big encounter, we took a trip with some friends to the grand shrine in Ise. I've been wanting to go there since I took an introductory Japanese culture class in college. It was a really nice, I just wish I had more time to enjoy it. Being that we went there on a holiday weekend, the grounds were packed. We got some nice sights, and picked up a little of the local eats, but it was still pretty rushed since most of our time was spent fighting through crowds.

After getting back to Osaka, Midori and I took a bus up to her parents' place in northern Kyoto prefecture. Lovely area, rural sea coast village. The have an old gas-powered, one-car train that services the area, kinda like a trolley in San Fran. The weather was generally nice and we did plenty of wandering around town. But mostly we hung around the family's house and relaxed. I did see Amanohashidate, which is one of Japan's three most scenic areas. That's two down for me!

Of course, now it's back to work.