When you LEAST expect it...

So, after a harder than usual week, I didn't have too many expectations going into the weekend. I'd gotten a call from Tomo during the week, saying he had the weekend off and wanted to play tour guide. I was apprehensive, but thought it would be nice to get away... so decided to go for it.

Saturday, we got up pretty early to go to Naruko Onsen (hotsprings) and Matsushima. Naruko is famous for lovely autumn foliage and Matsushima is one of the three GREAT views of Japan. And then the plan was to go for dinner and after that go where the wind blew us... or something like that.

The day was great, weather was fantastic, and fun was had by all. Garret had a good time, though climbing through the gorge at Naruko wasn't exactly his cup of tea (fear of heights!) he was a good sport about it anyway. And the leaves were really pretty. :-)

Then we headed out to Matsushima... which is absolutely gorgeous. Basically 'matsushima' means 'pine island' and what is it is a cove with lots of little rocky islands filled with pine trees. The view is absolutely gorgeous, you can climb up about the area and look down on these islands AND you can go across a nice bridge to one of the islands. Either way, it's really pretty and worth doing. Though it got a bit windy as the sun went down... it was still a really nice day.

We started our evening with a slight diversion... Tomo knows a lady who's involved with the exchange/international students at Tohoku University and she has a student from Italy staying with her. As he just came back from Italy we stopped by to drop something to this girl. Anyway... we ended up going inside and having a glass of wine. Which led to the telling of the 'pikalisha' story... and the fact that I like 'Awamori' (strong Okinawan liquor)... which then led to our hostess bringing out an array of 'awamori-ish' drinks for me to try. If I had finished all the cups in front of me I would have tripped my way to the car. As it was, I sipped and was a bit rosey on the way out...

Then it was on to gyutan! 'Gyutan' is cow tongue. Sendai is famous for it. You should have seen Garret's face when he saw there was no chicken on the menu... and it got a bit funnier when I told him that we were at a restaurant that ONLY sold gyutan. Heeheehee... I didn't really know we were going there myself until that day. But as Garret is a VERY finicky eater I kept it a bit hush hush... and he did fine. Liked almost everything... he said it tastes like chewy steak! But I don't think he'll be going for gyutan again. ;-)

That was about when the news of the Niigata earthquakes got to us. Well, the news of how serious they were. Tomo works for the weather service which also assists with disaster relief situations... and even if it's his day off he's got to report in in the event of a disaster (these earthquakes count if you've seen the pics!)... so after some Baskin Robbins... he left us.

We went with Helen (a really great girl who lives and attends the university in Sendai) and went looking for a place to drink. We ended up in the nicest cocktail bar I've ever been to. Low-lighting, jazz in the background, lovely bar staff... AND great cocktails. No menu, basically they knew it all. I had the best long island iced tea! Wow!!

We each had two amazing cocktails and some sabisu (service) items (lovely bready thing and a dessert)... about a half hour before we left, a man came into the bar. And busted out a cigar. Well, Garret is not opposed to having a cigar on occasion so this guy made him very jealous. One of the bartenders must have mentioned to him that we were from Alaska (Garret and I) because the guy passes down a cigar and says "welcome, I've been to Anchorage..." in Japanese of course. And the cigar... was... CUBAN!!!! Yup... Garret almost fell off his chair. Heehee... (and he said he can't wait to tell Norm Phillips and Bill Husby!)

So, after seeking out the tobacconist... we met up with Tomo and then headed to Bar Isn't it? A "chain" bar (there are several of these places in the bigger cities in Japan... very western in styling) for a bit of a dance. One of the guys that Lauren and I met in September also came... right when we were about to leave... but that's ok...

Helen and I tore it up on the dance floor. I haven't danced in SO long and the music was pretty good... and I had a buddy on the dance floor. It was perfect! I even got Garret out on the dance floor for almost ONE song (that's pretty good if you know him!). And then at around 2:30am, we decided to go. That was pretty late considering that I had to be up and on a bus at 7:40am... I thought I stretched it out pretty good.

Then I slept like a ROCK for a few hours, got up, showered... and made the bus!! BUT... wow... it was worth the sleep deprivation!! It was SO much fun!! :-D

I'm ordering up another good weekend like that VERY soon....