Visiting the Fam in Himeji

Two weeks ago I took a couple of days off from work to travel many miles to visit my uncle in Himeji. Himiji is about one hour south of Osaka. If you remember, I went to Osaka for Christmas, and I was on trains for 17 hours. This time I took the fast train though, and it was a much shorter journey...like 5 hours. My uncle and his family are awesome, super hospitable and very generous. I had a great time. We went to Himeji castle, which of course was beautiful....



Here is me, my uncle, who is hiding behind my aunt for some reason, and my cousin who happens to be a dominator at karaoke. My uncle and I......not so much. But we make up for it with enthusiasm.



Standing next to the sakura (cherry blossoms)



For Sunday dinner my aunt's father took us out for a blowfish dinner. Actually, only him and I ate fugu (blowfish) because everyone else was vegetarian. On this night, being a vegetarian was a bad idea because this was the best meal I have ever had. This first course is blowfish sashimi (raw meat). It was delicious. Then came blowfish tempura (pictured), which was equally fantastic, and finally we had blowfish nabe which is kinda like soup. If you didn't already know, the blood of the blowfish is poisonous to humans. You need a special license to prepare it here. Apparently like 3 people died a month and a half ago because they ate some poorly prepared blowfish testicles. (I am not making this up, Google it.) So the whole meal everyone was telling me I was going to die.



I also ate an entire mix plate of seafood sashimi. I felt and looked like I was about 3 months pregnant. My host was pleased. I guess being able to eat a lot is a good thing here. Its also a good thing he didn't order any more food or I would have exploded.

The best part of the trip was just being around family again. Joylani and Matt came to visit during the summer, but since then I haven't seen family in about 6 months. That is just too long. I will definitely be back in Himeji soon.