My birthday with Bobby...

It was a great 29th birthday!!! Bobby arrived on Thursday and we went straight to feast on shabu-shabu (a Bobby Ennis favorite). When he was almost falling asleep in the hot pot because of the jet lag, we went home and hit the sake I bought in Hiroshima...yummy. The next day we headed on the Romance Car to Hakone and stayed at an amazing boutique hotel called Kinnotake. It only has about seven rooms and all of them are different. Ours was three stories and had bamboo everywhere, even the floors were made of bamboo, and a view of a private lake and bamboo forest. My favorite touch was the outdoor toilet, with a view! I got a divine massage and if it wasn't for the insane price, I would've thought I was in Thailand or Bali. We got the typical meal, about 10 courses, served to us in the room. The presentation was beautiful but after three hours we really just wanted to go to sleep, since we were sitting on the floor it was hard to resist just keeling over on the ground...but we resisted. We did, however, drink quite a bit of champagne (after all, it was my b-day). That explains the last picture with my cute cards and presents from my mom stuck on my face...cute. On Saturday night (my real b-day) we went out to dinner at Kyubey, the best sushi restaurant in Tokyo, making it the best sushi restaurant in the world. We had an absolutely amazing meal...and such great atmosphere at the sushi bar. We got the head chef. There was this creepy yakuza (Japanese mafia) guy at the end of the table with his young girlfriend. The chef gave us each a free piece of horsemeat sashimi for my b-day...not exactly the chocolate cake a la mode I had hoped for, but a memorable delicacy nonetheless!