Birthday Weekend

Friday marked the 27th anniversary of my arrival on this earth. Now, I usually celebrate my birthdays by taking time off work and having a big party/meal or something alike. This time was different. Firstly, because it's the first birthday I've ever celebrated outside of England and secondly, because I didn't take time off work.

Some of my colleagues brought me presents which was unexpected and really lovely and everyone sang happy birthday to me or said it to me in the corridors. That afternoon, I had to drive for 2 hours to get to a work meeting though. As it turned out, the meeting was less time than travelling there! After the meeting, Amy, Shawn and I went for a meal. We were in Kusatsu (at the south end of Lake Biwa) for the meeting so we decided to go for dinner in Kusatsu too.

As we wandered back to the cars, I spotted a hilarious looking place which I just had to visit. We didn't end up staying for food but the novelty of going in was enough. We theorise that it is themed around the Trojan horse because of the main sculpture at the front of the building and if that's true then the name of the restaurant, Surprise Donkey, is funnier than we originally thought! Inside, the place was themed and the menu was presented on a 'window' with European shutters. Oddly though, they were playing rap songs which wasn't quite in-keeping with the rest of the ambience.

Instead, we ventured on to a restaurant I'd been to in Hikone and not realised it was a chain. Baby Face Planets. I wanted to go because the one in Hikone has an amazing desserts menu but it turns out, although they all share the same name, they have different menus. Still, it looked alright so we stayed there and ate a pleasant meal. Amy and Shawn sang to me and some random people in the restaurant clapped which didn't embarrass me in the slightest. 😳

After that, we drove back to Hikone. Amy let me stay at hers so that we could go for a drink. We went to a little family establishment with a quirky old man taking the orders and a couple of women drinking sake like there was no tomorrow. Once again, Amy started singing and this time, the Sake women joined in!

The next day, I was invited to visit some temples during the day on Saturday with one of my colleagues. He took me to visit a couple of temples, the first one was Taga Taisha. It's a large temple with many shrines inside near to Hikone station.

I learnt how to correctly cleanse (washing of hands in a set pattern) before approaching the shrine/temple and how to approach and pray at the temple properly. It involves throwing your donation into the box, ringing the bell then bowing twice, clapping your hands together in front of you twice and praying followed by a final bow. After the day today, I have this down to a fine art as we prayed at a lot of shrines/temples throughout the day!

I learnt a lot about the shrines, my guide was very good at explaining although we didn't speak much of each others language, we understood each other through gestures and Google Translate - thanks Google!

{these are people's wishes written on stones in the grounds of the shrines}

After Taga Taisha, we drove to Omihachiman to visit some more temples. When we arrived there, they were setting up lanterns for a small event along the canal there.

My friend asked me to try Fumazushi, a particularly smelly local speciality which is sushi that has been left for some time like cheese which I really didn't enjoy - but I did like the dessert that he convinced me to try - ざんぜん。It consists of a warm sauce and bean paste type dumplings.

After that, we wandered around for a bit, trying various sushi's and fish before he suggested one final temple. It was a short drive and we weren't sure if it would still be open when we got there but we thought we might have 10 minutes to get there. When we parked, we walked over to a hill with stairs stretching away in front of us. There were 808 steps in total and we had to get up them in 10 minutes to have any chance of visiting the temple before it closed. It was a struggle for me but my friend raced up the steps with ease (that's what running a lot will do for you!) - but I'm pleased to say that I made it up in time, all by myself. Although I was the worse for wear when I reached the top, I was proud. And it was so worth it for the stunning views.

We stayed there to watch the sunset and then set off back down. It was on the return journey down all of those stairs that my friend revealed we could have driven most of the way and parked near the top so we'd only have had to climb the very last few stairs. I was livid - but not really! The temple and place is called Chomeiji - it means long, happy, healthy life. After climbing that many steps, I should think a healthy life would be guaranteed!

That evening, Amy threw a birthday party for me which was really fun. The entertainment consisted of Amy embarrassing me again by another rendition of Happy Birthday, this time with everyone involved and guitar playing (including Happy Birthday once more for good measure!); spoons played with chopsticks instead of spoons (which was hilarious but also dangerous, my hands took some time to recover) and Vietnamese card games.

So although a long way from home, my friends made it a birthday to remember.

{Bonus - the struggle is real}