first leg of the trip - Niigata

24 hours after leaving Canada my mom finally made it to Niigata! To be honest I was most excited about showing her Niigata. As I am constantly writing about I am absolutely in love with the beauty of my area and I knew she would be as well. Quote "Banff has got nothing on here!" We had the most remarkable weather since the forecast has predicted endless days of cloud and rain and we toured the countryside.

Thought it was funny!

Went to a beach that I had heard about from Justine and it was quite beautiful (devoid of concrete) but had a bit of trash scattered along the water line. We saw a big Buddha statue in the distance and decided to walk to it. Little did we know that is was over two kilometres away and not even accessible from the beach. Winds were a little strong as were the waves so sand in every orifice and drowning discouraged us from staying long.

After went to check out the Murakami festival which is apparently rated number 3 in Niigata. The shrines were quite beautiful and old, the men were drunk and boisterous, and the food was great. I discovered my name is Kasarine (Catherine), children's heads make perfect steps for drunken old men and was even encouraged to help haul a shrine, which I politely declined. Had some delicious festival meat and met the Japanese equivalent of the dumb blond, her hair was even what they consider blond (which is a pukey orange colour). Only picture of us from our whole trip that wasn't taken by one of us. I refused to do the touristy thing after having the unfortunate pleasure of meeting up with the hordes of vulture (i mean tourists) in Kyoto, but that is for another day.

Visited a quaint little flower garden (swamp) out in Kamikawa that is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains. Saw various flora and fauna but unfortunately not the mysterious mountain goats that the pictures proclaimed exhisted and the deer signs on the roads warn us to avoid.

Nice waterfall near the swamp.

Visited an over hyped steak restaurant in Niigata for Minori, Tsubo and Yasuko's birthday and finally went to the Irish bar Robins.

Our last day in Niigata was almost completely spent apart since I was once again screwed over by Japanese bureaucracy and had to spend 2 trips, 8 hours driving and 3 hours waiting to get my fricken Japanese drivers licence. Lucky for me I didn't send my lost passport, which my embassy insisted I do, to the embassy... I guess.