Yup, now I'm 30!

Thank you all for all the wonderful birthday wishes. It really makes me feel good to know you are thinking of me. Here are some pictures from some of the festivities. Many people came in from other parts of Wakayama via the train station, I only lost one, sorry Theo! We went to dinner and had so many courses I can`t even count. They were all very delicious, except of course the prawns whom insist on staring at me. I even had salmon sashimi, which was quite tasty, not at all fishy. After dinner we went to, surprise, surprise, another karaoke bar. The only problem was that all the songs were in Japanese, only a few in English. I guess that was only a problem for Mike and me. Everyone else speaks and reads in Japanese pretty well.
After that we went back to my apt and stayed up all night talking and drinking. At least most of us stayed up. One guy, the rowdy Australlian, "fell asleep" first so one of the other guys proceeded to draw a moustache, beard, and eyebrows on him with a marker. It was hillarious! At about 5am, I walked two guys back to the train station. Then we slept for a few hours, woke up, had lunch, and went to the castle. Those pics are in the next blog. It was a really fun night, and I had such a great time. Even though I am not at "home," my new friends in Japan helped me celebrate in a great way.