Just 2 American Kids: Kira's Turn! May 28- June 25

(This is part 1. Check back soon for parts 2 & 3!)

Thursday, May 28 finally arrived and I went to Iwakuni airport to welcome our next visitor, my little sister Kira, to Iwakuni! Hooray!!! She was here to stay for 1 whole month! I had 2 more weeks of work before summer vacation so unlike Lauren who hit the ground running, Kira eased in to her trip. The first two weeks we stayed really close to home and the second two weeks we explored a little further out. It was awesome to have her here because I was able to check off a lot of items on my Japanese bucket list that my hubby was not as interested in doing.

We got really lucky with the weather because June is rainy season in Japan. I expected it to hinder many of our plans but in the end it only affected a few days.

Kira arrived after Violet's bedtime on Thursday so Friday morning Violet got to meet her Auntie Kira!

Friday was gorgeous so after work Kira, Violet and I drove to Tsuzu beach for a walk. I'd been to the beach before but never really explored it.

We stumbled upon an obstacle course! Such fun!

Saturday was good weather too so we set out to explore Kintai-kyo and Kikko park as well as hike up the mountain to Iwakuni Castle.

Iris garden

Trail head

It was a short but steep hike. The trailhead was almost directly down the hill from the castle and there were only a few switchbacks on the path...which means we basically hiked straight up the mountain!

We hiked back down and found a restaurant serving the local style of sushi- Iwakuni zushi- another first for me too as I had not tried it before. For Iwakuni zushi the ingredients are stacked and packed and then cut into a square instead of packed and rolled as seen for tradtional sushi.

It was hot so that evening we raided the 7/Eleven at the bottom of the hill for ice cream and other treats (which we ended up doing almost every night!).

Sunday was June 1 and the day I embarked on challenge to run 100 miles in 30 days. Kira agreed to run with me. Our runs took us all over Iwakuni- including over the Kintaii bridge!

In the afternoons after work the following week I took Kira to some of our regular Iwakuni stomping grounds- the Daiso, Sushi-go-round, YouMe town, MaxValu, and Cazl Mall to name a few.

Then on Saturday we went to Hiroshima. First we went to Shukkein gardens and then we walked over to the Hiroshima castle and went in and up to the top!

Views from the top of Hiroshima castle

After exploring the castle we set out to find the Yukata festival happening that weekend. Along the way we stumbled upon some dance performances- including 7 year olds dancing to Shots! and the instructors singing and dancing to the Kim Possible theme song. Quite entertaining.

These girls' wore matching shirts that had the Lego logo on the front but instead of "Lego," it read "Fuck." lolz

A torii gate made of balloons!

We walked down Hondori Street to (what we thought at the time) was the main festival area.

We stopped at many food vendors to sample the fair fare.

Next we made our way to Peace Memorial Park and Museum. We had perfect timing and got in with just enough time to get through the museum before closing.

We were getting quite tired at this point and were ready to call it a day and began to make our way back to the train station. Along the way however, we were stopped by this:

a literal sea of people squished on the sidewalk between food and game vendors set up for the festival. Wow! This is were all the action of the festival was!