Bleach Tours

Melissa's boyfriend coolin' by the kawa.

Today Merissa and I took a little road trip to Ye Olde Takayama, "up north" in Gifu. There we enjoyed the old streets of this neat city, did some serious omiyage shopping, ate gohemochi and soba, tried to figure out Melissa's sweet new camera, and had a Grand Ol' Time.

Our plan was to spend a couple hours in Takayama and then head out to Shirakawago to check out the famous houses. However, our plans were dashed when we came to a gate across the road, barring our path to said town. Boo.

But the drive was gorgeous, as you can see from one of the photos below, and we really enjoyed ourselves. We also saw more gringos than I've seen in many moons. The place was just crawling with them.

On the way back we chanced upon an amateur fireworks display in Nakatsu, stopped to watch that with the 20 or so festival revelers (from what festival we knew not, but they were decked in fun festival garb). From where we were we could also see another fireworks display going on on the other side of a mountain, which was pretty cool - since it was dark, you couldn't see the mountain, just where the bottom of the fireworks were hidden behind it.

Afterwards, as we were famished, kaitenzushi was once again enjoyed to the fullest.

Tomorrow is Packing Day for me, as I leave the next day (sugoooi). I will enjoy packing and last minute errands. But for now I must go to bed, as I was late to bed and early to rise this morning, and didn't want to be up this late tonight.

Peace, babies. I'll see you American peeps right quick, darlin's.