Disney, Camping, Oarai, BBQ

For our first year anniversary, Michael and I decided to go to the happiest place on earth, Disney Sea. Disney Sea is next to Disneyland in Japan, but is designed with seven “ports of call” each with its own unique theme. The amount of land does not compare to America, but the detail of each attraction was amazing. The day started off a little gloomy, hence you will see umbrellas in some pictures, but sun came out in the afternoon. The weather was cooperative and resulted in less people. I think the longest we waited for a ride was 40 minutes. That’s pretty good considering it is Disney! We rode most of the “fast pass” rides like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Indiana Jones, Tower or Terror, etc... We caught a few shows in between and finished off the night watching the fireworks show. Oh, almost forgot, there is a Disney Resort Line train that circles to the hotel and stops at Disneyland and Disney Sea. Once you get on the train it is constructed with everything Disney, from the seats, to the windows, they know how to make you want to spend money!

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This past weekend, June 14th was pretty interesting. On Friday night, the OAPs went to Kinugawa (Kinu River) to have a bbq. We fired up a couple of grills and everyone brought their own food. We had a little bonfire going the whole night and just relaxed with some great conversation. Some of us wanted to camp out there, so Michael and I figured we could camp in the car. However, Annie just got this huge 4 person tent and convinced us it would be better than the car. I can actually say I went camping. We woke up in the morning and Matt fired up the grill again and made us some eggs and bacon. It was delicious. Overall, camping wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. With airbeds and all, it makes for a comfy night’s sleep. Saturday, Michael and I went to Oarai to walk around the beach since the last time we went it was cold. The beach was not ready for swimming yet, but there were lots of surfers out. We walked along the beach and then took a little rest in the car since we didn’t sleep much from the previous night of camping. After our nap, we rode our bikes for a little bit and called it a day. On Sunday, Michael’s group had a bbq in Utsunomiya. Wow, when they bbq, it’s no joke. Basically, everyone chips in a certain amount and the two youngest in the group, Ota-san and Azumi-san were in charge of going to get the food before the bbq. They did a pretty good job because everyone was stuffed. Most of the younger ones maintained the grill too. We had delicious chicken, beef, veggies, clams, etc…Oh, Michael’s chief engineer and assistant chief engineer caught some fish the day before and we grilled those too. It was a fun time! Oh almost forgot, we tried Coke’s new green tea flavor and it tastes just like diet. We really couldn’t taste the green tea flavor at all, but kind of disappointed.

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