So, my friend Meredith and I were talking about blogging and things, like you do on a Saturday nights and I said to Meredith, "Mere, you should be a guest blogger on my blog." She said, "Whats a guest blogger?" and I said, "well, you see, um..." and then I realized that I don't really know what a guest blogger would do. She has her own blog, which she updates with less frequency than I do, apparently, so obviously, she should post something up here. Mere is a rad, hip, South Carolinian (or West Virginia, or Ohio if you really want to get technical, the East Coast is a confusing place aparently), affectionately referred to as Mere Kuma, (Mere Bear) Puma Kuma, (It rhymes better...I don't know, it was Winston's idea) and Ms. America from time to time.

So I live in Chiba Prefecture too, along with Alex and Winston, but I live about an hour and twenty train ride north of them in a town called Yotsukaido. Yotsukaido is an old military town and, only being 50 minutes from Tokyo, is basically a suburb of Tokyo. I could rant and rage about how ugly the town is and my frustrations with the fact (since I reguraly crave the chance to hike), but I'll just skip that and just jump to the fact that Chiba Prefecture has gotten significantly better since meeting Alex and Winston. Yeah, yeah. Sure they're both cute, funny, adventurous, American, good cooks, wine drinkers, many other things I find compatible in friends but they also have something I don't...

A CAR!

Alex was blessed with a placement that requires driving and thus was granted a car. I sooooo miss a car more than I can explain. In fact, each time I'm in a car in Japan I'm so simply stunned and blissfully happy that I often lose all articulation and mumble incoherencies. I like nothing more than a good joy ride, head out the window and tail wagging.

Anytime Alex has mentioned the phrase "road trip" I'm there. So was the case yesterday when we ventured to Tateyama, a rumored beach community only about an hour away from Kimitsu.

We spent most of out time in the car (which I was fine with) driving along the coast looking for THE hot spot to go. By the time we started figuring the place out though, the weather went foul and our energy was waning so we started heading home.

I can't say for certain that we found THE hot spot- Tateyama does prove to be beautiful but might not hold the ideal beach front/swimming/surfing that we all had preconceived notions of (however there's still a lot to be discovered).

But I must say, we ended our little road trip on a high note when we pulled off the side of the road and caught the most beautiful sunset over the Pacific I've seen since I've been here.