Exploring Mainland Japan

Last weekend we hopped on a free flight and headed up to spend almost a week exploring the southern part of Mainland Japan. This trip was not like our other mainland trips at all, which are always go go go and leave us exhausted every day. That would not have worked for this pregnant girl. It was great. It is also great that Japan is nice and clean, and a place where the public restrooms are clean and plentiful. That definitely worked for this pregnant girl. We also chose to rent a car the first part of our trip (also so nice when you're 26 weeks pregnant) and we loved driving around this beautiful part of Japan. 

Our first day was spent in the city of Iwakuni. Iwakuni is home to the historic Kintai Bridge, built in the 1600s, and was for the exclusive use of nobility and Samurai to cross over to the part of the city they lived in. Way up on top of the mountain is Iwakuni Castle. We got up there by a cable car. 

^^^Japan is not Victor-sized. But for Annie, it's juuuust right ;)^^^

 That evening, we drove up into the mountains and ate at such a cool restaurant known as "the chicken shack." All the seating area was spread out through the trees lit up by the lanterns. Magical and memorable. And the food was delicious.

 Stay tuned for the rest of our adventures. We had a great time, and more importantly, we just got some uninterrupted time with each other doing our most favorite thing to do together: exploring and seeing new places. I'm feeling grateful we were able to go after our series of unfortunate events. We won't talk about how when we got back to Okinawa and went to pick up our car, it had a flat tire. Such a fun welcome home. Let's hope this little unlucky streak of ours is ending soon (knock on wood).

Hope you have a happy day!