Day Off!

On our day off we went to the little town of Utazu, a suburb of Marugame.

This is how many plates of sushi we polished off. We LOVED the conveyor belt sushi bars.

Mike's "ass" candy.

Mike the pilot. Sega rocks.

Here I am riding "Anpanman," a very popular cartoon character in Japan.

Jamie outside the store "Hard Off." Okay, it's not what you think...it's a store that sells hardware at discount prices.

Mike and I liked to hang out at the Vivre Shopping Center.

Me and the stuffed animal I won from one of those claw machines. Honestly though, I didn't WIN it.  A young Japanese worker took pity on me because I tried and lost so many times that he finally came over, unlocked the game, and reached in and got it for me!  The character's name is Doraemon and very famous in Japan. It's my all time favorite manga or Japanese comic books!

Standing next to a Godzilla poster advertising the lastest movie. How many of these things will the Japanese come out with?

Jason's Birthday

For Jason's birthday we went to the local batting cages to hit a few balls and then to a sushi bar.

Here are the girls. We are lined up in order or life stage. Let me explain: Pat on the left is single, I'm married, Twila is married and pregnant, and Claire is married, was pregnant, but now has a child. So we each represent different stages of a girl's life. Well, at least I thought it was interesting. :)

Here we are afterwards at the sushi bar. The boys had a sushi eating contest, not only to see who could eat the most plates of sushi, but who could eat the grossest or weirdest types of sushi.

Here is Claire (Jason's wife) eating some tuna. She despises fish so it really took a lot of persuasion to get her to finally eat this piece. She hated Japanese food so much I don't know how she ever survived living there for a year.