Visitors

 I've had two!  I'm pretty excited about that :)

First, one of my friends from college came and, after she finally got here, two days late and at the wrong airport, we did lots of really fun stuff, like go see castles!

So, I have this problem.  Certain people I went to Ireland w/ loved to try and scale anything.  Now, whenever I see a stone wall, I want to climb it...

 

We happened to go on a day when they were having this crafts fair w/ lots of cool handmade stuff.

Like spoons.

Then we visited the Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge...

Where you can go hangout right under the roadway of the bridge.

 It's pretty well caged in, but for people like me who think about things like "If I fall from this height, hitting the water would be like hitting cement..." it's still a bit unnerving.  Although the view is absolutely stunning.

 Near the bridge there's a small cedar forest.  I have to say, I was a bit disappointed in them, as they were a bit on the small spindly side.  Not exactly what I imagine when I think of the "cedars of Lebanon".

 Also, I had to work the rest of the time she was here, we spent a good deal of time meeting up and eating at random places, like this one, where our food is being cooked at the table.

And we had a great seat by the window, perfect for people watching on the street below.

While she was here, my friend really wanted to try tempura, so she found this organic vegetable restaurant place that had tempura.  Since neither of us is very good at reading the menu, we ended up with this nine-course dinner that actually didn't include the giant bucket of tempura that my friend was wanting, although everything tasted totally amazing.  The best part was the rice course, which consisted of rice and egg.  Now, I love rice and egg.  My friend, however, thought the egg was hardboiled...  It took awhile but I finally convinced her that eggs in Japan will not make you sick, that the hot rice cooks the egg just a bit, and that egg and rice really do taste pretty good together (although they could use some salt)...  Getting people to eat raw egg.  I feel accomplished  :)