tanjoubi omedeto - happy birthday

I celebrated my first birthday in Japan on Wednesday. Craig got me a lovely necklace, took me to a nice dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant and, the best part, I got a puppy dog cake.

It even came in a fancy dog house.
Isn't it about the cutest cake you've ever seen. In Japan bakery cakes don't have that awful super sugary frosting either so it was delicious too. We debated whether to cut the dog along the medial or sagittal axis. Since it was a roll cake we opted for sagittal. His insides were chocolate whipped cream with a vanilla pudding spinal column.

Since my work-oholic husband still has summer vacation he needs to use before October, we were going to go for a hike too. Unfortunately it started to pour rain while we were walking up to the mountain. We decided to tough it out for about 40min but the rain only got heavier and we were drenched before making it to a trail head. We figured if the roads were this slippery then the trails were probably muddy little rivers. Craig got to see lots of BIG spiders. Apparently sub tropical climates are very good at evolving big, web making spiders. I tried getting a picture of one but I couldn't bring myself to get close enough. These were spiders on webs on street signs and lamp posts, I don't want to think about what they're like in the actually forest. I keep telling myself they can't climb up 10 stories and if anyone know anything to the contrary keep it to yourself.