Doing that touristy thing

Well, on Sunday I got to do the whole touristy thing in my own city! Very fun! Amy & Jacinta came to visit, and we had a great day! The weather cooled, and was so beautifully pleasant all day - unreal!!! We had coffee, wandered around the city centre, had lunch, then jumped on a bus for the 99 Islands (Kujukushima in Japanese). For 600yen, we had entry to the aquarium (small, but quite interesting), museum and a little imax theatre. In the kids section of the aquarium, there was a human sized cage, with rabbit & monkey ears, pig and elephant noses, etc - we got right into it, taking turns dressing up and snapping pics! The funniest part was the number of Japanese ppl who stopped to watch us, and then had a turn of their own when we were done! There was no one there before! LOL!

We stopped in at the imax theatre for a 30min show - In the Deep. The commentary was all in Japanese, but the scenery was beautiful, and the background music was very relaxing. It was then time for the cruise on the pirate ship - quite a funky ship really. We were right at the end of the line, and were a little worried that there wouldn't be room for us up on the deck. We forgot we were in Japan, where people are paranoid about tans! As we got on the boat, the bottom two levels were quite full, and we had as much space as we wanted up on the deck!! LOL! So we enjoyed our almost-hour sailing around some gorgeous little islands on a pleasantly warm day, with a cool breeze blowing - nice! And b/c we had been to the museum etc, it only cost us 1000yen! ($12.50ish)

After the girls left, I went out for a yummy-scrummy dinner with almost all the instructors and staff - very fun! So much for an early night tho!

The weekend fun didn't stop there either... on Monday evening I had dinner on the US Navy Base with Matt, David, David's navy friend Zac, and 2 of Zac's friends - Eddie & Tomoko. It was such a yummy dinner (how's that - out to proper restaurants 3 nights in a row! Very happy weekend!) - and the cost? Nothing - Zac paid for all 6 of us! Sweet! We had Baskin Robbins for desert, and then headed up to Mt Yumihari to look out over Sasebo. It was Eddie's last night, so he wanted some pics. Tomoko drove the others, and I went on the back of Zac's motorbike - fun! Once again, wasn't an early night, so I am gonna be really stuffed by the time I get back from Fuji!!

Yes, that's right... I leave tomorrow!!! I have to be at the bus stop downstairs at 5:33am! How exciting!