Friday Night

I went over to Hamadera Park which is right near the church. I have to say that Japan owns the U.S. on playground slides. They are really cool. So cool that we went back later that night to ride them, ha ha.

Saturday

On Saturday a couple from the church took us to Himeji Castle which is the best example of a Japanese castle. This is because most of the other castles were destroyed or partially destroyed by war. Many were bombed in WWII. I heard that U.S. took care not to bomb this one though. Some of the other castles have been rebuilt, but then they put elevators in them or something like that so it takes away the authenticity. This castle is also really cool because it stands on a hill so it really does have a commanding presence. The stairways were really steep and must have been made for the shortest people on earth! One staircase I was trying to go down and I had to make sure I didn't bang my chin on the floor there was so little room. It was like I had to limbo just to get down the stairs. I also had to wear these slippers. It didn't take me long to kick those off. It was hard enough trying to keep those on and going down the steep small staircase with a horde of people in front of me and behind.

This was the day of the Cherry Blossom Viewing Festival in Himeji City. Too bad the cherry blossoms came late this year. We did find one tree that had bloomed, but it would have been really cool to have seen hundreds of trees do that. So that was one thing I was hoping to see in Japan that I didn't get to see. But I guess it's some consolation that a whole city's viewing festival got screwed up so I wasn't the only one.

Sunday

On Sunday I woke up with my fever raging worse than any other day. So I wasn't able to go to church. Aaron told me later that the pastor called me out again when they were welcoming the new visitors and he asked Aaron in front of the whole church where I was. Glad I had a good reason, ha ha. By afternoon I was feeling better but still totally freaking out about a long plane ride home in the sickest condition I've ever been in.

Sunday Again

Which brings me to today. Crossing the international dateline lets me live this day all over again. I felt a lot better on the plane so maybe I'm finally on the road to recovery. I'm still going to the doctor tomorrow. I'm definitely not going to work tomorrow. So I don't think I sounded too bad, but the two people next to me on the plane got other seats elsewhere so I had my own row! I still didn't sleep on the flight though. I grabbed like 50 tissues from the church before I left. I used almost all of them on the flight. And talk about sinus pressure when we landed. I'm still waiting for my ears to pop. So I arrived 5 hours before I left Japan. I was only gone 9 days but it feels like I've been gone a month. It's weird how when you're immersed in a foreign culture like that how quickly you forget your normal life is like. I'll put the pictures up soon.