Today is mostly a travel day.

We are heading from Osaka to Yamaguchi for Haruna and Robert's wedding tomorrow .

We left our hotel in south Osaka on the subway, to Nishi-Umeda, station. We left one suitcase in a coin locker, as the contents are all coming back to Canada and we could lose one of our 4 pieces of checked luggage. Much easier to move with just one large suitcase plus a smaller one perched on top, for each of us. We took the JR Line to Shin-Osaka station to get our tickets and catch the Shinkansen (Bullet Train). Upon arriving at the station at about 9am, we discovered they were all sold out of tickets until the 3 pm train. We forgot it was Silver Week, where there are three National Holidays in the week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and everyone was travelling. At least I had internet in the station and listened to the Roughrider game (even though it was another loss). We finally boarded our Bullet Train for the 2 hour trip to Yamaguchi. The trip went pretty fast, except that I was a little asleep at the switch, and we missed getting off in Yamaguchi, as these trains do not stop for long . We ended up getting off at the next station about 100 kms away. We caught the next Shinkansen back, but it wasn't an express and took 3 stops and an extra hour to get back to Yamaguchi.

We are staying at the Yamaguchi Grand Hotel, which is just across from the station. Upon getting to the room, we had just enough time to clean up and get ready for the family dinner, in the Chinese Restaurant in the hotel. In attendance at the dinner were Mizue, Yasutoshi (Haruna's mother and father), Haruna, Robert, George (Robert's dad), Shaun, Bryan (Robert's 2 brothers), Eve and myself. It was a good evening of Japanese style Chinese food, beer and conversation.

After dinner, we headed up to our room and helped Haruna and Robert make up candy favour bags, Japanese and Canadian types, for the guests at the wedding reception. Japanese candies for the Canadians and Canadian Candies for the Japanese guests.  

Everyone is getting ready for the big day tomorrow!