This weekend I will go to visit my brother Paul in Shimane prefecture. Sarah, Victoria, and I rented a car and we are driving there Friday night. Hopefully we can arrive between midnight and 1am. We really don't know how long it will take to get there, so hopefully it won't take too long. Monday was a holiday this past weekend, and it is also a holiday this coming weekend. So we chose this weekend to go visit Paul. They seem to have a decent amount of holidays in Japan, at least one a month where no one works. I figured out that we can take expressways to about one hour from Paul's town. Then we have to take a local highway the rest of the way. The expressways are the fastest method of travel by car, but it is quite expensive to travel on them. I think the highway fees might be 80 dollars each way. The car rental comes to $175 for the three days plus insurance. This seems reasonably priced to me. One of my friends is going to Hiroshima for the weekend and her train ticket round trip is about $250. I think with three or four people taking a trip that driving will be cheaper than taking the train, but not as much difference as you might get in the states.

We'll come back Monday morning so we have a little time to get things settled in Toyama before heading back to work on Tuesday. Hopefully we will have good weather this weekend, because one of the attractions of Paul's place is that it is next to the beach. If it is too cold, this won't be that nice. In Toyama recently we have had a cold spell, so I hope Shimane does not have the same front right now.

Paul said something about a dinner on Saturday for local JETs that we might be able to go to. I am worried it will be one of those expensive ones, because S, V, and I will pay our own way. Normally I am not so worried about money here, but spending a lot on the trip makes me not want to spend as much. Sunday is also supposed to be the Sports Day for one of Paul's schools. I don't particularly want to go to another Sports Day all day, so we might do something else if Paul wants to go there.

Paul and I have also talked about visiting Okinawa for Christmas, but I was looking up prices for the plane tickets, and it looks horribly expensive. A round trip ticket on United's web site was between $850-950. It is cheaper to fly home, or to Australia. I need to go to a travel agent to see if there are better prices or what. That is just too much money! I think a ticket to Thailand is around $350.