on the first parents visit

from wednesday, april 26 to sunday, may 7, amandas parent lois and jeff visited japan from perth, australia. the itinerary was to spend a few days in nagoya, then head off to visit tokyo, hiroshima, kobe, himeji, and nagoya during the japanese golden week period.

the short story is that it was a great time. i think amandas parents had a great time and it was really nice meeting them. amanda organized the trip wonderfully so there wasnt much problem with trying to figure out where to go.

tokyo was fun. we took an early morning shinkansen on saturday morning and stayed at a place called the sunright hotel (which i jokingly referred to as the sunwrong due to it being less than what a 3 star hotel should be). we took a pretty boring cruise down the sumida river where i saw a beautiful straight bridge, went to asakusa to do some shopping, went to shinjuku to the notorious district of kabukicho which is essentially tokyos red light district for some seedy people watching, and then went to our favorite restaurant, the donki, for some all you can eat all you can drink good times. the next day was busy...ueno park, ginza, roppongi, shibuya, then to an izakaya for dinner. we saw alot.

on monday amanda and her parents took the shinkansen to hiroshima while i stayed in tokyo an extra day to save the first time experience of hiroshima for my parents. i basically went to akihabara to do some video game shopping and then went to harajuku just so i could eat wendys and then get a mcflurry from mcdicks for dessert. i took a cheap night bus from tokyo to kobe to meet them there.

the first thing i did in kobe was go to the internet cafe since it was the only thing open at 630 in the morning when the bus dropped me off at shin kobe station. at 10 i went to the hmv and bought pearl jams new cd, then listened to it about 5 straight times while walking around the european style old buildings of kobe before meeting amanda and her parents at the shinkansen station in the afternoon. i had some trouble getting a hotel...amanda and her parents booked a triple room in advance, while i decided to just get there and get a single. dumb idea during golden week...i had to walk around abit to find a cheap hotel.

after 2 good days in kobe we went to himeji to the site of japans best castle. at night we took a cable car up a mountain in kobe where you have no idea how there was ever a devastating earthquake here only 10 years ago. the next day was back to nagoya for some recovery and relaxation.

on the friday, amandas japanese friend ichiro drove us around abit...to inuyama castle, to a boring outdoor museum, and then finally to his house for an awesome dinner that his wife cooked. ive never seen so much food and beer in my life. we didnt even come close to finishing it all.

the saturday was back to work, which was promptly followed by a gigantic dinner at the outback steakhouse, which i still consider to be one of the best restaurants in nagoya. on the sunday, we unfortunately drove amandas parents to the airport. they were on their way to kuala lumpur to spend 3 days but they were clearly sad to be leaving amanda and leaving japan. we all had a great time and it was a great way to spend golden week.