Cat & Dave on the Trans-Siberian Railway

For those of you who are still frantically worried about us, I assure you we are still fine. In fact, we had a fantastic weekend. Friday night, we went over to one of Dave’s coworkers houses for dinner. We watched Star Wars Episode V, which was just as awesome as I remembered, but slightly better with Japanese kanje at the bottom of the screen. Dave was hoping it was going to be dubbed, but I am very thankful it was not. Then Saturday we spent the day packing up the apartment since we are moving out next week. Saturday night we had dinner with our landlord at his restaurant, and then we sang Karaoke with him for hours. Sunday we traveled to Himeji with the intention of visiting the castle there, only to find out that it is closed for renovations for the next FIVE YEARS! That was a major bummer, but it was nice to be in a city we’ve never explored before. We found a neat place for dinner and ate a whole bunch of different foods on sticks. Monday was a holiday so we stayed in Kansai for the day. We popped over to Osaka briefly and picked up our Russian visas, so now everything for our trip is completely set! Then we went to Kyoto for the giant flea market at Toji Temple. 

We have one more week in Niimi, before we head to Osaka, Kanazawa, Tottori and then it’s off to Russia!