New Years Eve= Awesome Adventure

Russell and I decided that we wanted to get out of town and do some exploring around our island, Kyushu. We had nothing to do on New Years eve and thought this would make for a perfect opportunity to go out and explore things we have yet to see and do. I knew the way to head towards the coast. Sasebo is located and surrounded by a bay and we hardly ever see the actual sea or ocean. If you know Russell, he practically lives in the water and is in it every chance we he gets. We headed south west and ended up finding this beautiful little set of islands, the biggest one being about the size of Coronado. I was in heaven because this island reminded me of it.

 SaiKai is known for lobster! Ya for us and it being a holiday so we could splurge on a nice New Years meal. They signs for it everywhere as well as all different kinds of fish! Here are a few pictures of our exploration trip!



You have to first drive across this bridge to get to the first island.

Driving across it! Beautiful!

Russell poking at something in the water as we were exploring the tide pools.

Under the bridge! I loved every minute of this trip!

The view from the lookout point at the bottom of the bridge. Isn't gorgeous? I felt like we were in Hawaii!

They had huge maps of the islands all over the sides of the roads so you wouldn't get lost.  

We then ran into this very nice looking resort and onsen (Japanese bath house). It was on the very end of a peninsula and had 360 degree views! They also had a restaurant inside and we wanted to eat there, but they were sold out because of the holiday. We decided to explore the grounds of the resort instead.

They had a lookout point that you could walk up onto and this me hanging out there!

Russell was in love with all these beaches and can't wait for summer so we can go exploring in all of them.

These creatures are everywhere! Not only at this resort, but I see them on peoples door steps around our neighborhood. I need to ask some of my Japanese friends on what they mean and what exactly they are.

The straight down view from the look out point! Look how pretty the water is!

After we were done there we decided to stop off at this restaurant. We figured they had to have lobster!

We knew we had ordered the right thing when the man came out, took a lobster from the tank next to us and then came over to the table to make sure this one was okay for them to cook!!!!!!

When the man brought the lobster out to us, the large tentacle got caught up on my sweater. This was my face of excitement. NOT! lol. Thank goodness I was half way done with my beer at this point. lol.

Our entire meal consisted of half of our lobster steamed and put into miso soup. That was delicious! The second half of our lobster was sashimi. Aka: raw!!!! Yep! It's legs and tentacles were even still moving on our plates!!!! Yes, I did try a few bites of it and it actually didn't have much taste to it. It definitely didn't taste fishy, just kinda there. I could even see my dad trying this. It also came with bowls of rice for each of us, some pickled veggies and some fish flakes. I'm not going to lie, Russell ate 65% of this meal. It was a great experience and I wouldn't change it for the world! We decided we are definitely coming back to visit it again.