Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!
So, today, we did something a little different. All the girls wanted to see rabbit island, but that’s a long Shinkansen ride down, and a ferry ride too. So everyone took off this morning for Hiroshima prefecture and ookunoshima. Britni turning out to be a Japanese speaker is really helpful, because now she can be the “tour guide”, of shorts. Even if she hasn’t been there, at least she can speak it, so they won’t get lost. That also helped because Shinkansen tickets are expensive, and while we’re spending a lot of money on this trip, there’s no point in being profligate (there’s a word!) about it.
Dave, Sabby, David, Beth, Liz, and Emiko and her family stayed behind, and we went up to Saitama to see Ai and her family at their house.
Ai invited some of her friends over too, it was a full house, but at least not an explodey house, as seven girls and Rebecca’s mother were currently speeding towards rabbit heaven.
Ojiisan and Obaasan made us a nice Japanese lunch, which was very nice, and we offered to go to the store to get them some ingredients because there were a lot of us. But they just waved us off and said it was nice to have guests.
Liz’s friends were around our age, named Takahashi Minami (not THAT one), Shinoda Mariko (not THAT one either, what are the odds?), and Ooshima Yuuko (Okay, that’s just ridiculous!). I remarked on their famous names, and they laughed and said along with Takahashi Ai (my half-sister) they were pretty much an idol group. I asked if they got made fun of for that, and they just looked puzzled. “Why would they make fun of us for that?”
I shrugged. Good question, all told.
Anyway, they were all pretty Japanese girls, with black hair and black eyes and not tall and trim figures, but their faces were different (thankfully), Minami had a slightly plump face and severe bangs, Mariko had a thin, oblate face (kind of oval but wider on top, think Chibi Maruko Chan) with twintails, and Yuuko was the spitting image of Niigaki from Morning Musume – very cute and looked much younger than her age. After lunch we all went to a shrine while the adults chatted. It was really hot but the shrines are peaceful places. Ai’s friends had a hundred different questions about America and Texas and after we answered about fifty of them Ai told them to shut up and let us get a word in.
They just bowed and said “sumimasen” and we said we didn’t mind.
They made us promise to take them with us to the amusement park when we went (we were supposed to go today but pushed that back a bit) and we said sure thing but they had to pay for their tickets. They jumped up and down and yelled “Yatta!!!”, then covered their mouths with their hands and giggled.
Japanese girls are so cute sometimes, haha!!!
David thinks so too, I caught him catching a glance and blushing. Hahaa!!!
I made a note to myself to call ahead to see if we had to make a reservation for groups, because the number could be in excess of 25 now… We just seem to pick up people! Hahaha!!!
Anyway, after we walked around the shrine (it’s not as hot as before, but still pretty hot) we made our way back to Ai’s house, and after a very nice dinner made by obaasan, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel.
It wasn’t until later that all the others came back from ookunoshima. Crystal was so happy!!! She got to see so many bunnies!!! And all the other girls were burbling too!!! They are some really cute bunnies!!!
It ws nice to see Crystal so happy. It’s so rare anymore. Aww.
Anyway… we’re about to turn in.