Weekend in Kumamoto (July 8-9)

I spent the weekend with Erica in Kumamoto. We went down to Diamond City (a huge shopping mall).

While at the mall, Erica pointed out some yukattas that were displayed in the middle isle and when I tried to look closer to where she was pointing, someone stopped directly in my way. I thought, gee that's kinda rude..I looked up to find Asma! What a surprise running into him at the mall..! Marc (who recently decided to become a Baha'i) was also there, along with some other Baha'is and friends who had just finished a Ruhi book and were headed to get some bubble tea. So we joined them for a while, then went back to our shopping :)

Later in the evening, we went out to karaoke with some friends of Erica's. We discovered that one of them, Maki, was born on the same day as me..(September 19th 1978) How weird is that!? It was also another girl, Terumi's birthday today, so we celebrated by having some sweets together.

The following day, we drove to Kikuchi gorge. And who do we run into?.....Marc! Again..! Talk about it being a small world...

The falls were beautiful, and I especially appreciated the fact that it was much cooler around the falls..

Everything in Japan comes beautifully wrapped. A lot of care and effort goes into making things look very special. Sometimes it's taken a little too far...here we have individually wrapped cashews...

We stopped at the Tao Cafe, famous for its delicious apple pies, on our way back to the port.

While on the ferry heading back to Nagasaki, I was treated to the most beautiful sunset.

It started out looking like this:

I went back inside, and just as I was sitting back in my seat, I looked out again and it looked like this!

Japan must have the most beautiful sunsets...