エバーさんの誕生日パーティー [Ava's Birthday Party]

Last Friday was Avaさん's birthday. 桑原さん was nice enough to make arrangements for a nice birthday party for Avaさん. I am sure she appreciated all the hard work he went through to reserve a place at a nice 居酒屋 [izakaya - Japanese style pub] in 千里中央駅 for us to celebrate her birthday.

Because my friends from high school and now in college are all such nice and kind people who celebrate birthdays with cakes and a song, I could not resist but to buy Avaさん a cake and make the grad students sing her happy birthday. Unfortunately, the cakes in Japan are a bit more expensive than they are in America. I could be really hardcore like JNfir-Ann and bake something amazing, but luckily (whew!), I had no oven. XD

The lab members were such a darlin' and they all decided to chip in for the cake at the end (even though everyone got such a tiny tiny slice). They're super cute! I will sure miss them in the states.

So we first celebrated Avaさん's birthday by surprising her with this cake:


Avaさん was being too shy to look at the camera:


While we were singing a cheerful birthday tune, she loosened up:


After work, we went to a really nice 居酒屋 and later, to a cheaper one for more drinks. It was nice of 桑原さん, 市川さん, 武田さん, 山中さん, and 野崎先生 to join us. :)

This nice 居酒屋 that 桑原さん reserved:


Avaさん's birthday drink! The first of many!!! just kidding ^^v


That cool LCD screen to the right of 市川さん is how you order!!!


市川さん got a drink that requires manual labor. HAHAHA. I believe it was a グレープフルーツサワー [grapefruit sour]:


Doesn't Avaさん look excited to try her "first" drink ever? ;)


野崎先生 claiming that he and 山中さん are twins:


I love how 山中さん is so indifferent to 野崎先生's craziness:


市川さん is calculating the bill with his crazy Japanese cellphone:


Moved to a cheaper 居酒屋:


Don't ask why, but Dave insisted to have his picture taken with these weiners:

淀川花火 [Yodogawa Hanabi]

After 姫路城, we traveled back to downtown 大阪 for the 淀川花火, which was a highly reccomended イベント (event) by both the graduate students as well as 伊達先生. We decided that it was not one we're going to miss. It's the biggest fireworks display in 大阪 which lasts about one hour in duration totalling approximately 20,000 shots of fireworks in the sky. In a very environmentally-conscious country, the birds must have been really sad that day. :D

Early Saturday evening (while we were having fun enjoying 姫路城), 市川さん and 桑原さん generously took the time to reserve a spot for us to sit by arriving at 5pm to stake out a place (with blankets to sit on, like for picnics!) for an event that started at 7pm. Lyさん was nice enough to go out the Friday before and buy a bigger blanket to accomodate all the people going to the event. Because it was a nice Saturday evening, we were joined by a lot of lab people such as 石さん, 篠田さん, 小西さん, 田中さん, and 伊達先生 and his wife (in addition to to the three mentioned above).

The fireworks display was super awesome and I had a blast! There were so many people there. It was so amazing. It's something that probably would be banned in the states just because of the major fire hazard it posed. However, that only made the whole situation more exciting!

Right before the fireworks show started, we went on a food and drink run. It was probably unwise, as most of the stands were sold out of edible goods considering it was so close to the start of the festival. It was me, Davidさん, 市川さん, 篠田さん (or was it 小西さん? my memory is failing me...), and 田中さん. We decided to be smart and go outside of this big field of emptiness in hopes of finding a close convenience store. Bad bad idea. To make a long story short, the nearest convenience store was probably still too far, all the handy vending machines in Japan were sold out of prime essentials (e.x. water & iced tea), and we ended up having split up in hopes of finding food and drink. As 市川さん, 篠田さん, and 田中さん were busy waiting in line for overpriced food far far from the field, me and Davidさん ran to the nearest vending machine that was not sold out for drinks. We got tiny, tiny bottles of water & milk tea for everyone and had difficulties carrying it (as we lacked a plastic bag and we were each carrying close to 6 bottles). When we went back to the field, the police had already started to block of area (mostly because it was getting too close to the start of the event, I think, than because of the major fire hazard concern I detailed above). After some smooth talking from 市川さん, we were able to sneak back just in time. I believe it just started as we spotted our picnic area.

They fired three ドラえもん (Doraemon) into the sky. I only caught an upside-down one and a slightly off centered one. I missed the first show, where ドラえもん was rightside up and looking perfect (darn!). Anyways, I was glad 市川さん told me about it, else I wouldn't have tried so hard to decipher the ドラえもん fireworks.

I have a few pictures of the fireworks, but I'm a bit bummed out because I lost some of my pictures due to the fact that my SD card for my camera decided to have a meltdown during the transfer of files to my computer. Unfortunately, a lot of good pictures were lost as well as precious pictures of 伊達先生 and his wife! I promised him I'd send those to him too. :( I also had good lab pictures that I lost (and had to resort to stealing from Youngさん. Ah, well... hope she will forgive.

Here's some shots of the 花火 from my camera. I had other ones where it looked like the sky was on fire... but those were lost due to technical difficulties (grr).

A mixture of people in 祭 (festival) type attire--浴衣 (yukatas) and the whole lot--littered in the crowds. Yukatas are so pretty!


A small taste of just how many people were at the festival:


Some pictures of the fireworks display (though not nearly well taken enough to depict its grandeur:




Us PRIME kids with the CMC gang:

姫路城 [Himeji Castle]

Though the posts from now forth are going to be "posted" on the date the event occurs, most it of it will be have been written at least one month afterwards. I didn't have the time to post my blogs immediately after our weekend excursions, because we played too much! However, hopefully, they are still accurate depictions of what we did (nothing too exaggerated such as 石さん jumping into 大阪 harbor and 桑原さん chasing after him, or something).

Early Saturday morning, we set out to 姫路市 [Himeji City] in 兵庫県 [Hyogo Prefecture] in hopes of finding ourselves a "real castle." 市川さん and 伊達先生 kept calling 大阪城 a fake, because the main structure burned down during World War II air raids. When we went through 姫路城 (Himeji Castle), the distinction was clear. The building was old, but still magnificent. Plus, there were no elevators and it didn't feel like a museum (which was much of what I felt while wandering thorugh 大阪城 with its nice informative televisions, models, and short skits about the history of the castle). I overheard (as I was shamelessly eavesdropping in someone else's conversation) that 姫路城 was havily damaged in a typhoon either last year or a couple years back. It was evident as a lot of the wooden support beams were heavily cracked probably due to the tension of the strong winds. However, it was very obviously that building something so tall may cause it to wear faster due to weather (considering how common typhoons are in Japan). Ah... I am glad I was able to see the castle though. :)

While we in 姫路, we crashed the お城祭 [o-shiro Festival] by accident. Because we weren't there for the 祭 (as we had a nice fireworks display to attend later that night that interested us more), we didn't stick around to take pictures or anything. There are nice pictures of the 祭 from someone else who was there though. The festival was pretty cool, because during the festival, everyone was granted free admission in 姫路城. *dances around happily for saving 600円*

Trying to pretend I am a resident of the nice castle:


How the castle corridors look:


This pictures shows the different family crests, also known as 家紋 [kamon], that can be found on the castle roof tiles. They mark the rulership of the castle and also gave an indication when parts of the castle was constructed or added. Obviously, everytime the castle exchanged rulership, it wasn't exactly prudent to spend a lot of energy to go around replacing these roof tiles, haha.


Me at the foot of 姫路城 (which is still considerably higher than the city):


The view of the city on the 8th floor of 姫路城:


The castle itself from my perspective (a feeble attempt at a camera trick):


Part of the お城祭 march:


Notice how the uniforms change with the years and change of rule of 姫路城:


We saw this guy with those chipmunk things/animals:


Look! It stands:


After we explored 姫路城, we went to the nice garden just west of the castle called 姫路城西尾屋敷跡公園 [Himeji Castle Nishi-Oyashiki-Ato Garden], also known as 古公園 [kokouen]:


Another scenic view of the beautiful garden:


The last I saw of the 祭 and basically of 姫路市 as we grabbed a quick bite to eat (yum, festival food!):