Our Anniversary

Audrey and I definitely picked the right country to live in this past year. Our anniversary actually falls on a national holiday so our schools were closed and we had the day off. So that morning we got up and headed to breakfast. There is a delicious bakery down the road from our house and they just opened a Cafe that Audrey had been dying to try. The menus were totally in Japanese but through the pictures and some help from our waitress, Audrey was able to order french toast and I got some sort of breakfast hot dog. The food was delicious and the coffee was stout. After breakfast we headed to Tegarayama Central Park in Himeji. We had heard about it from some of our friends and wanted to check it out for ourselves. Our first stop was a beautiful garden in the middle of the park. The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed just walking through the garden and enjoying our time together. After walking for awhile we headed for museum. This museum was of the people who lost their lives across Japan because of the nuclear bombings. It was very interesting learning more about Japanese history and some of the stories behind the lives of the people that lived through this terrible time. After leaving the museum we headed for a botanical garden. Inside we saw some of the most gorgeous flowers we have ever seen. Some of the colors we saw were so vibrant and the plants almost looked fake. We enjoyed our time in the garden and took tons of pictures... which you will see later in this post. After leaving the garden we were starving and ready to grab some lunch. One of my coworkers had told me about an all you can eat Italian restaurant in the area that we were really interested in checking out. Unfortunately the directions we got were not exactly correct and the Italian restaurant was no where to be found. Now in Arizona we probably could have just asked for directions but it didn't matter how many times we tried we were unsuccessful in finding someone who could point us in the right direction. So we finally gave up our search and headed to a nice restaurant at the Himeji Castle Hotel. It is also buffet style so we enjoyed our fair share of steak, seafood, chicken and a plethora of salads and Japanese food. Not to mention, all the ice cream we could handle. After leaving our late lunch we decided to head back to our place and put on a movie. For the rest of the evening we just relaxed and enjoyed the rest of our day together. So it was a pretty low key day, but enjoyable none the less.

bombing memorial
Lovers in Japan
Beautiful flowers
Stunning colors