this years' golden week was a nice restful one. on april 29th, we drove down to kagoshima for joey's birthday party. the next holidays were may 3 4 and 5, making a long five-day weekend. like last year, we went to miyazaki for an overnight trip. we ended up staying two nights, then we went to yoshi's parents' house for one night.

we got up bright and early on wednesday morning, loaded up the car with blankets, luggage and the food we bought at costco the day before and headed out. last year we left the house before 4 am and arrived at our friends' place at 7:30. this year we left at 5:40 and got there at 9. my friend loves having visitors, but this year was easier on us!

yoshi was quite tired actually, since he stayed up late the night before (grrr) so i was left running after hiro all day. while yoshi slept, hiro fell on his face! i was walking with him but didn't want him to go too far. so, i picked him up and carried him back to the temple. but then i grew tired and put him down. hiro didn't have his balance and *splat!* right on his head. ouch!! he immediately got a knot on his head and a scratch on his nose. but as the afternoon progressed, more scratches showed up on his face. poor little baby!!

while i helped prepare for dinner (mainly i stood around and 'tasted' because i also had to watch hiro), yoshi went to an onsen with a couple of other husbands. that was fine, but i was very tired by the time he came back, and hiro became his responsiblity. but that didn't prevent hiro from dumping a full cup of shochu on his face when i was standing right next to him! aaahhhh! i had yoshi take him to the toilet to flush out his eyes. i think he also cleaned out all the scratches on his face! hiro also slept well that night, so i guess he swallowed a bit of shochu, too.

in the evenings (both nights) we had fabulous yakiniku. the first night the japanese relatives were in charge of cooking the meat and they kept piling it on the BBQ! either they burned it or it came off the grill raw...ewww. the second night it was just a few families so the BBQ was regulated better. and though the kids were wild and running around, i managed to get hiro to sleep so i could enjoy some time with the adults.

on the second day we stayed at our friends. we had done some sight-seeing the year before. we had somen for lunch both days, but the second day they set up the trough for sliding the noodles down. each person had to catch some noodles if they wanted to eat!











that afternoon other families began to leave (it was a get-together of foreign women married to japanese men) but we stuck around. the weather was perfect! in the afternoon i went to an onsen with two other women and their daughters, hiro stayed with yoshi. it was lovely to take a nice bath and spend some time in the rotenburo!

we had a great time in miyazaki, but yoshi wanted to leave early on saturday morning to get to his parents' house. we made it to the expressway just in time to get a discount (one minute to spare!!) but i insisted we take hiro to an onsen before going to omuta because the poor little guy had only had a shochu shower in two days! LOL he was filthy! that night we had yakiniku again, i've had enough BBQ for the month of may!!

here are a few more pictures of our stay in miyazaki:


our hostess and her dog


yellow/orange flowers


pansies

and a few more pictures. on our way to the temple, we stopped because hiro was crying, and he was still in his pajamas. we changed his diaper & clothes, and then he wanted to walk with yoshi. we had stopped at a tiny train station that had these large carp banners, and i took some pictures: