The girls' arrival

I headed into Sanners and met up with Bron, Lisa and Maya. We went to Baan Thai and had an amazing lunch. Sorry, forgot to take photos.

Thanks for organising Bron! I had a great time catching up with you girls. Hope to do so again before August - some of us staying, some of us leaving.

I also ran into my Principal, Vice Principal, PTA members and volunteer students who were out in Sanners collecting donations for Indonesia.

And this cigarette costume dude was creepy looking.



After a bit of shopping and a visit to Fresh Burger, I went to meet up with Meng Yen and Christina at the station.

Finally the girls arrive in Kobe. They flew into Tokyo and stayed 2 nights there before taking the shinkansen down to Kobe.

I haven't seen Meng Yen for about 2 years now. The last time was back in Perth when we both returned home (from UK and Japan respectively) to attend weddings (her older sister was getting married around the same time as my older brother). She has since relocated to Sydney and is now engaged to Rohan (I have yet to meet!) and lovingly wears her gorgeous diamond ring! Congratulations to you both!!

I last saw Christina back home in March when I flew back for Marina's wedding. She had just finished a huge trip to the states with the UWA Motorsport team and will be starting work on-site up north as soon as she returns home. What a tank!

Seeing them in the coin locker place, trying to stuff their mega, freakin' huge backpacks into the lockers, having them actually in Japan was surreal. It was so good to see them and things picked up again from where they left off. What a cliche, I know but although it had been about 2 years since I had seen Meng Yen, we were our same ol' selves and it was great to speak to her face to face again.

The non-stop talking and catching up started straight away as I admired Meng Yen's beautiful ring and grilled her on all the details of the engagement, wedding plans and her new Sydney life, and found out all about Christina's travels in the US, the motorsport competition and her new job.

We walked around a bit then met up with Sue Yen and headed to the Sky Buffet.

Then we met up with Chris (a mate of Christina's who was also visiting Japan) and went to Polo Dog and bumped into Sam, Miwako and some other Kobe JETs.

The rooster guy! This dude has a pet rooster that he takes for evening walks around Sannomiya...in the city! And I swear that's a red Hermes handbag that he keeps it in!