A Great Weekend!

I've just had the most awesome weekend in a long time. First of all, Alex just finished his first week here in Fukushima, and it's really great having him around. He's from San Diego, and we're the same age, and have similar senses of humor so it's fun to goof around the office with him. Plus we get to hang out a lot outside of the office, and it's always nice to make new friends here.

Speaking of new friends, I just made a fantastic one this past weekend. Remember me mentioning an Amity teacher, Michelle, that I met at the Hanamiyama bbq? Well, I met up with her yesterday to check out some flower festivals that were going on around town. I didn't really know her very well, but I thought it would be a cool opportunity to learn more about her and get some yummy festival food (e.g. ooban- little pancake pockets filled with chocolate/cream/red bean and anything else good you can think of). It turns out that Michelle and I have a lot in common. She's from the Lake Tahoe area, and went to school at UCSB. She speaks Spanish fluently, and lived in Chile and Barcelona before coming here to Japan (well, not those things, but many others). She's really athletic, and adventurous so we decided that we would make great friends and could go exploring together. Later that day we went for an hour run around Shinobuyama. We ran all along the path on the bottom, along the river, and then around the back into some residential areas tucked away in the mountain. The view was absolutely beautiful, and I needed the workout.

Things just kept getting better when she took me to a pick up indoor soccer game that goes on every Sunday night. Playing soccer again was so much fun, and I got to meet a lot of other Japanese and foreign people who were all really friendly and fun. One of the guys at the soccer game owns an Indian restraunt, and I guess everyone goes there for dinner afterwards. I had the best Indian food ever, and it tasted even better because I haven't had any Indian food in quite some time (I think the last time was at Megha's restraunt). After everyone left, Michelle and I talked for hours with the owner, Nana, and his wife, Mayu. He's Indian and she's Japanese, but he moved to Japan and she adapted his religion. They're both really sweet, and Nana kept us laughing non-stop with his silly jokes. We finally left around 1am, but Michelle said that sometimes she ends up staying until 4am!

Today, Michelle and I took a bus over to Koriyama. It's not the most exciting town, but there's better shopping than Fukushima and it's close by so we felt it was something we had to see at least once. I bought some really cute stuff, although I was trying my best to restrain so I can save up for Golden Week. We also saw a couple temples, and went up to the top of this planatarium building at night to see a great view of the city. We finished the night off with some kaiten zushi (where sushi comes by on little plates), and made plans to check out this cute cafe later in the week. Michelle and I are on the same page about wanting to explore as much as we can while we're here, and I think it's going to be great to have someone to share all of it with.

Here are some pictures of Koriyama!