More fun in the sun!

Eating on the rooftop Part of the view, with the moon dipping behind some buildings

Well, the fun didn't end with the baseball on Sunday night. In the evening, we had the Nova farewell dinner for myself, Brendan, Trevor and Chizuru. We went to a beer garden for an all you can eat Korean BBQ - very awesome! It was the perfect summer night - the humidity was down, and we were sitting up on top of an 11-storey building, looking out over the city lights. There were 12 of us altogether - a great group of people. After tea, of course we had to go out for karaoke. It was a very late night, but SUCH a fun one!! We inadvertently terrorised one stranger in the karaoke bar with our boisterous singing, but a few came and joined our group! Fun, fun!

Mike and Brendan let it rip (left), and on the right, (from right) half of me, Rob (Trev's visitor), and Sarah sing along with a friendly stranger.

On Monday, I went with Hiroko, her mum and Yumiko to a beautiful river about 40 min drive away. We set up our picnic spot, where they fed me yummy-as sushi and green tea, then Hiroko and I set off for our swim. The river was very small and rocky, and we had to wade, stumble and slip our way up-stream to where it deepened. The scenery there was even more gorgeous!! (Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera there, cuz I would have smashed and drenched it on the way.) We spent ages floating in our floaty ring thingies, drifting down the river (and occassionally doing a little white-water ring-thinging!) then making our way back up again.

The water was cold and the sun was hot, the scenery was breath-taking and we were far from noises of civilisation. Utterly peaceful. Hiroko commented that when she came here, all the stress of work just melted away. At that point, I suddenly realised that my mind had been totally still and at peace - surreal!

We had tea at a little Japanese restaurant... a yummy bento - sashimi (raw fish), miso (salty seaweed and tofu soup), rice, pickles and tempura (battered, deep-fried stuff) - it was SO good! I got home around 7:30pm, thoroughly exhausted but relaxed from my weekend of socialising and sun!