The year of the...dragon?

My holidays are over...but they ended with a fun filled weekend.

First up spent Saturday with Steff hunting out bargains in the Kobe sales. Can't say we exactly shopped up a storm but we both did make a purchase. In the evening the gang came to Kobe for our Shinnenkai at a cool little Spanish style place . Not a bad deal of course and 2 1/2hr nomihodai for 3500 yen except the paella was a suspect. After dinner we went to Hobgobblin for a drink before catching last trains to our respective homes.

Back in Himeji Steff and I expected to meet up with Chichan at Himeji station so she could also crash at mine. Only problem was Chi chan was mid swing at her shinnenkai #2 and wasn't quite ready to leave. So the good friends that we are, Steff and I walked in the cold to pick Chi chan up from Tropicana. (Is this one more point to Chi chan becoming gaijin?hehehe)

Not up early on Sunday but managed to get going in time to get out to Himeji horse racing course for the annual kite flying day. It was FREEZING but quite a few families were braving the weather to take part in the day. Chi chan bought a kite with 龍(dragon) printed on it an was having fun joining the kids until suddenly the weather changes for the worse and the white stuff started to fall. We took shelter in the betting center until we were brave enough to go out for one more fly. After leaving the kite festival we drove up Hiromine mountain and checked out the views from Hiromine shrine.