Weekend 28th and 29th

Saturday 28th. Instead of the sleep in I so desperately needed I went for a leisurely(!?) 7km run with Ria and Lisa. Afterwards Ria invisted me to breakfast and ate butter chicken curry, and lots of pancakes. It was a huge change to my usual breakfast of 'Banana Solo' (Banana only). After wasting alot of time at home I went into Kokura to find some snow gear for next weekend (Hokkaido!!!). I ended up spending way too much money and then had to rush back to Steve and Nao's housewarming party. Their new apartment is so nice and Steve made lots of Hawaiin food for us. Unfortunately some of it was pork so some looked good too! It was a really fun night and I was again reminded how much Japanese I have to learn to maintain a conversation.
Sunday 29th. Chris arrived from Ajimu and we went to Charlie's 6th birthday party and ate a great deal. We then went to Hiroidai Mountain to see some caves, that I had been recommended to see. After some slight 'detours' due to insufficient signs and/or our inability to read kanji we made it there. We paid 800 yen to put on little plastic shoes and enter the cave. It was not what we expected but after the section of the cave they had cemented both the floor and the roof we got to the interesting part where we walked through about 20cm of water (average). The limestone on the floor was a clean light blue. The cave was quite small in places, even for me so it was a struggle for Chris. Right near the end (approx 900meters inside the mountain) there was a really small hole we had to go through. The last photo is Chris fitting through the hole, unfortunately I was laughing so much I missed the best photo opportunity but got this one before nearly falling over. Despite being winter, the water wasn't that cold. Chris and I had both got only one pants leg wet in the cave so we decided we'd make a new trend. So cool! Well, that was about my weekend. Next weekend is my 5 day Hokkaido trip!!!