Golden Week '82 - 2012 version

Remember Golden Week? No? Oh. Whatever. Here's what happened.
ゴールデンウィーク終わってからもう３週間たったけど久しぶりにブロッグ書くから許してください。

The first thing that happened was that Miwako and I went to Otaru. まずは最初の長い週末に小樽行ってきた。
In Otaru, we decided to eat something, as we often do. We opted for soup curry, as we also often do.

いつでもスープカレー食べたいから、久しぶりに小樽のクレイジースパイス行ってきた。

Then we got on a boat and were chased by some seagulls, at which time my index finger was inserted up to the second knuckle into the beak of a seagull who probably mistook it for some kind of delicious man-made foodstuff.

そして船乗って、かもめに指かまれた。

The boat took us to the Otaru Aquarium, where out of the many fancy pictures of beautiful sea creatures that I took, I decided that the following two pictures would be the best to put on my blog.

そして小樽２人で９年ぶり水族館行ってきた～♪　綺麗な写真たくさん撮ったけど選ぶのがめんどうくさくてこれだけ見せます：

Then we returned via seagull-infested boat to Otaru proper, where Miwako took me to a fantastic restaurant where we gorged ourselves on a variety of earthly delights. The fried chicken and salmon sashimi were especially fabulous. Then we ate too much and it was painful but totally worth it.

そしてまた船で小樽に戻って、みわのおすすめのレストランで夜ご飯食べてきた。店の名前しらないけどなんでも素晴らしくおいしかった。とくにざんぎとサーモンの刺身がやばかった。でも食べ過ぎたなぁぁぁ。

After dinner, we went to our favorite bar, Bar Modern Times, where we drank fabulous cocktails and presented wedding photogs to our favorite bartender, who was nice enough to come to our wedding. UNLIKE EVERY SINGLE PERSON READING THE ENGLISH PARTS OF MY BLOG YOU STUPID JERKS oh whoops, sorry Mom and Aunt Cindy, you're cool. Please don't tell everyone else I called them stupid jerks.

その後は２人の一番好きなバー行って来て、結婚式に来てくれたマスターに写真渡して、おいしいカクテルたくさん飲みました。久しぶりの小樽デート楽しかったな～♪

So here's the thing. The bottom line is that Golden Week is like... a three day weekend (YAAAAAY!), then a couple of days of work (BOOOOO!), then a four-day weekend (YAAAAAY!). I assume it's named after the golden wedding anniversary of some crusty old emperor or something, but please don't tell the Japanese people that I said something so incredibly offensive to their culture and heritage. Just to be fair, I'll write the exact same thing in Japanese for the Japanese readers of my blog. But anyway, some other things that happened duruing Golden Week Part 1 are that the family gathered for a house-warming party at Miwako's oldest sister, Yuki's new house, we finally started building our veranda garden, and we went to a nearby onsen. Those are definitely some things, for sure.

ゴールデンウィークの最初の三日間週末はそんな感じでした。後はゆきお姉さんの新しい家で家族とハウスウォーミングパーティして、ベランダで作る植物やっと買いに行って、温泉行ってきた。そんな感じ。

When Golden Week Part 2 came around, we spent the night at Miwako's dog's house. Also, her parents live there or something.

次の週末は実家泊まりに行って、アンちゃんと遊んでた。

The next morning, we got in a car and Miwako trusted me to drive on the WRONG SIDE OF THE STREET on our way to Lake Toya.

次の朝は早く起きて、洞爺湖まで運転した。やっと日本の運転面鏡使えた！

After checking in at the hotel, we had some time to kill, so we took a fancy ferry to the island in the center of the lake, where we saw a crow fit FIVE crackers into its beak before flying off to hang out with its family. Also, the island and the lake and whatnot were beautiful, and we saw some Hokkaidoian deer and squirrels, but the most important thing is that that crow was a total badass.

チェックインしてからフェリー乗って、洞爺湖の間中の島行ってきた。あんまりやることなかったけど、曇ってたのに景色が綺麗だったし、エゾしかとエゾりすも見た。でもそれよりの面白い出来事はカラスの口にクラッカー５枚持ってたことを見たとき。感動しました。

Back at the hotel, here's what the view looked like from our room on the 8th floor.

ホテルの８階の部屋のビュー素晴らしかった。

Also, we had dinner in our room, which was fantastic.

部屋でステキな夜ご飯食べた★

Apparently every night for the past 20 or so years, there's been a fireworks show over the lake. So we went out into the rain to check it out and to try out the fireworks mode on my camera.

雨降ってきたけど外に出て、毎日の花火大会も見てた。

We weren't able to see the Supermoon, but holy crap the rooftop bath overlooking the lake was mega wicked sweet, though a little small. Then we randomly woke up at 5 in the morning and saw this.

その日のスーパームーンは見れなかったけど、誰もいないの夜の露天風呂は最高だった。それで朝の５時ぐらいに突然起きて、景色がやばかった。

Breakfast and the bath in the morning were great, and the weather was nice enough to clear up for us so we could enjoy the view, but eventually we had to leave. So we went to a volcano.

朝ごはんもよかったし、晴れてきて朝のお風呂もすっごいよかった。チェックアウトしてから昭和新山見てきた。

We then rode a ropeway thing to the top of a different volcano so we could check out the first volcano.

有珠山のロープウェイ乗って、上から昭和新山見ました。

Then we drove home and hung out with this guy that was totally hiding in the clouds on the way there:

帰りにやっとエゾ富士が見えた。

We also stopped to look down upon Otaru. Take THAT, Otaru.

帰りの小樽もこんな感じ。

And finally, Miwako needed to use her company's fancy camera to take some fancy pictures of fancy grilling food in fancy crappy weather, so Yuki & Co. met us at her parents' house and were all like "damn, yo, I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow". Exactly like that. True story.

最後に天気あんまりよくなかったけどみわは会社のために焼肉の写真撮らなきゃことがあって、実家で肉焼いた。

For a much better version of this story, see Miwako's blog. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN YOU KIDS.