Japan, day 1

We've been here in Japan for over a week now, and have been super busy!  Our itinerary has been jam packed with sight seeing and travel.



We arrived here on the 12th at around 6:30 pm, picked up our wifi device that we are renting while here, and then got on the train with my aunt, Hitto, and headed to her place.  We dropped off our bags, and went straight to dinner--yakiniku!  Basically, we sat at a table that had a grill in the center, ordered raw meats and veggies, and cooked them on the grill to our liking.  Delish!

Waiting for the train.

The yum.

Making lettuce wraps:)

My uncle

The next day, we traveled via shinkansen (bullet train) to Osaka.  We had originally planned on going to a different city and then hitting Osaka for a night on the town, but since we got a little bit of a later start, we just went straight to Osaka.  We went out to Dotonbori in search of delicious food...we weren't disappointed!  We had some takoyaki on the street, took lots of pictures, and then went in search of okonomiyaki:)  We found some yakitori and beers on the way...

Beers!

Yakitori

Happy boy!

Finally!  Okonomiyaki!  

So good:)

Happy girl:)

oh. and I found a dragon by our hostel:)

We stayed in a cool little hostel and fell into food comas soon after getting back:)  That was our first day in a nutshell!

Just a few more days!

The past week has been pretty busy.  I finished up my rotation today, prepped for interviews tomorrow, and will be leaving for our one month trip to Japan on Sunday morning!  So excited!  We have two weeks on the main land, then the rest of our trip will be in Okinawa and Kumejima.  Here is what our trip looks like (only the dark blue).



View Japan in a larger map


We still have lots to do.  We haven't even packed yet!  I'll have to start shoving things into a bag tomorrow and Saturday.  I DID get a new pack, though, which I'm pretty excited about.

ANYWAY, I'm really really really looking forward to this trip.  I will definitely try to blog about the experience while we're there!

PS...THIS is an amazing blog...and we might actually run into these guys in Kyoto!  Cool;)

Too many guests...The fix to your dilemma.

On a tight wedding budget, but unsure of how to cut your guest list down to a reasonable number?  Let me help you.  Just keep in mind that while you may still have to invite the same number of people, these easy strategies should decrease the number of expected guests considerably.  Also, be forewarned that not all of these (or any) are very nice.  Let's just assume you're desperate:

• Have you wedding outdoors, in the spring.  This is probably the best way to eliminate the largest proportion of guests, as allergies will be at their highest levels.  Make it extra special by having it in the middle of a field of grass, in Eugene, Oregon.

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• Don't want kids there?  Advertise special entertainment of clowns and math homework for those under 21.

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• The double whammy:  Don't serve alcohol.  This will not only cut costs dramatically, but also discourage alcoholics, freeloaders, and completely crazy people from coming.  The smart ones will just sneak their own in.

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• Include some craziness in the ceremony.  Make people exercise during your 4 hour ceremony, include a nutty scientologist to marry you, etc.  You get the idea.  Use this one with caution though--there are people (like myself) who may actually find this intriguing--more intriguing than your boring wedding, and will come for this reason alone.

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• Make your wedding a potluck wedding, but also require quests to sign up to bring elaborate dishes. 

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• Register for ridiculous and expensive things that you will never use.  I think most people do this already.  Seriously--do you really need 3 deviled egg trays? Do you really even need 1 at $29.99 each?

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*These suggestions were compiled in a Gtalk chat session with the soon-to-be-wed Seyoung, and were meant mostly as a joke--please do not take offense to any of them as they were made in fun:)