Hawaii Sunday

The entire day reminded me of home.  I feel even more excited to be going home in about a month.  The days events went like this:

1:  My cousin finished her 9-month bible study program.  She will now start her three month outreach in west Africa.  We got to Skype which made me even happier.  One day we will meet our significant others :).  Hopefully it'll be back home in Hawaii!

2:  Visited a woman who I met at my cooking lesson in March.  We finally met up where I got introduced to her daughter.  She did a 8 month program in Hawaii.  She really wants to go back.

3:  Had dinner with two of my teachers.  They both really want to visit Hawaii.  One teacher's aunty bought a hotel room.  So now she can visit Hawaii anytime.  

'Home is a special place for me, in the middle of the sea...'

One of our seven dishes we had for dinner.  Japan always gets an A+ for presentation :)

Sunsets

I don't know why I have so many pictures of sunsets.  I think I like sunsets.  Not just because my cat's name was Sunset.  Perhaps it's because I subconsciously miss watching the sunsets from my house on the Big Island.  Regardless the reason, sunsets in Japan are awesomely awesome!  I think watching a sunset is the perfect way to say goodbye to the day.  Watching sunsets alone make me a little sad.  But watching sunsets with others make me happy.  I think sunsets should be watched with good company :)

This picture is of a sunset at Misaki park on the edge of Akita and Yamagata.  Took it today on an impromptu trip.

And these are sunsets I've taken pictures of before.

Reunited and it feels so good...

Yeah, just like the song.  So I haven't seen Ayumi since my junior year of college.  Finally, after all these years, we met up in Akita.  She works for ANA so she can fly for free.  So I took her around Yurihonjo.  We visited Hottai waterfall near Chokai.  The water was a beautiful aqua color, trees green, sky blue and clouds white.  So beautiful!  Then we visited Hadate's Milsey dairy.  We saw cows and horses, ate udon and jersey milk ice cream.  We then headed to Iwaki to see the beautiful ocean.  The weather was awesome the whole day.  It was fun to catch up and visit these beautiful places in Yurihonjo.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

I've never been good at saying goodbye. So when my kareshi left Akita in March, I was a wreck that night driving home.  I wanted to cry all my tears so there would be none to shed the days to follow.  It worked more or less according to plan.  This time I left him to go back to Akita.  Once again, I was a wreck driving home this morning.  It was a little different as I have less than two months left in Japan.  There's so many things to do and so little time!   But that can wait for tomorrow.  Tonight I'll think about my kareshi so that I can tackle the tasks of tomorrow.

The funniest memory of our trip.  The monster potato shake 😂