Adventuring!

Spring break has officially begun, and my mother is currently en route to Tokyo to come wander the country with me for a week! We plan to spend Sunday browsing around Toyko (we've done a lot of the sightseeing but you can never really do Tokyo justice), then head north to Hokkaido, to the town in which I studied abroad during the summer after my freshman year. I'll introduce her to my host parents from that summer (a young couple who work in the fish market) and hopefully also to the rest of the city, which is small but historical and just plain cute. We will be staying in a beautiful ryokan - a traditional Japanese inn - with its own hot springs and outdoor baths.

We'll come speeding back onto the main island via night train and go all the way to Nagoya on Wednesday, spending the day in Kasugai with my host mother here, who's bustlingly excited and has invited friends over for dinner. Then Thursday we're off to Hiroshima for several days, in which we also plan to take the ferry to the nearby island of Miyajima and hopefully see Himeji castle on the way back to Tokyo. Himeji is the largest and reportedly most beautiful castle in Japan.

The Red Sox are playing at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday and Sunday, but we sadly don't have tickets, so I might have to settle for a cool poster and pictures of the media frenzy. And then Sunday the 23rd, Easter morning, mom flies home and I take the train back to Nagoya.

Should be a long, train-filled, and awe-inspiring vacation. I'll post pictures when I get back!