Happy 25th Birthday to Chad!

The Friday before Chad's birthday, some of his friends threw a surprise party for him. The party was held at a "Western" style bar in Tsu, and we had a lot of fun.

Don't know how much can really be said about that sign...

Takahiro is holding one of my favorite Japanese foods: takoyaki (octopus balls). This particular tray of takoyaki has a special surprise: one ball has a very strong spicy and not-so-good flavor. None of us aside from Takahiro knew about it, so Chad and I felt lucky not to be the ones in for the surprise (our friend Yasu got it!).


Chad ate this sucker, head and all.

Some kind of salad with chow mien noodles.

The restaurant gives all parties a one dollar bill that everyone is supposed to sign. Usually the bar keeps the bill and hangs it on the wall, but Chad got to keep ours.

Chad's complimentary birthday dessert....

and ours:

Emiko held the dessert near her head to give a sense of the sheer size and glory of it.

Present time!

On Chad's actual birthday, we slept in and then had blueberry pancakes (blueberries are a rare treat here as they're very expensive). Can't say how great the blueberries ended up tasting, but it's the thought, right? At the very least, we had some delicious Eno Maple Syrup to eat on them ;-)

After some deliberation, we decided to go to Toba aquarium. We hopped on a train and enjoyed beautiful scenery on the way:

When we got there, we enjoyed our obentou, or Japanese lunch boxes. This was my first attempt at making obentou, and they turned out pretty delicious (albeit a little smushed!).

The view from where we ate lunch.

After lunch we headed to the aquarium and saw some really amazing creatures. We had a really nice time.

Biggest. Crab. Ever.

It's lookin' at YOU!

Apparently one shouldn't get too close to the pelicans or storks.

I had never seen a seahorse before. The seahorses in Toba Aquarium were the length of my forearm! So cool!

Deep thoughts...

Craziest thing ever: a petting zoo for octopus! They are surprisingly soft, but the moment you touch them their tentacles move all of the place. One of the suctions on the tentacles caught hold of my finger and sucked! Ahh! Overall it was pretty cool, but I decided the octopuses must have stressful lives being exposed to curious people touching them all day.

After the aquarium, we decided to have a couple of local beers while we waited for the train. We went back to the ocean side and swung our legs over the side of a big wall. Chad said, "Be careful not to lose your sandal down there." After saying okay in a way like, "Oh, if you say so...." I swung my legs over and then...my flip-flop fell into the water. The wall was so high, there was no way Chad could jump in and get it--he wouldn't be able to get back up. On top of that, there were tons of jelly fish floating around. To say the least, I got even more looks than usual when riding the train home. ("Wow! There's a foreigner! Wow! She's not wearing any shoes!)


Our beers.

My sandal floating down the river.

When we got back to Yokkaichi, we had yakiniku, or Korean-style barbeque, for dinner. More on yakiniku later, but pictures are below:

The grill in the middle of our table.

After our fill of dinner, we headed home for Chad's birthday cake.

Happy Birthday, handsome!

I hope Chad had a nice day. He mostly went on and on about what and old man he is now ;-) We miss you all very much and wish you could have been here to celebrate with us.

Next post: Mount Fuji!