Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Koichi Comes to Visit!

This weekend was just so much fun. Koichi drove all the way from Bloomington to Carbondale to spend some time with us and to check out our new digs.

It was wonderful seeing an old, familiar face again. Since Nanu spent over four years sharing a house with Koichi in Bloomington, before he met me - they really go a long way back.

Koichi had as smiling as soon as he entered our home...Why?

Because he came with a whole case of Upland Beer - Bloomington's very own beer, available nowhere else! :)

The weekend was jam packed with so many things. We showed him around town, introduced him to our pets, ate in some nice restaurants, saw a movie, went to a beer garden called Pinch Penny, and then we decided to take him on the wine trail.

Its called the Shawnee Wine Trail out here in Southern Illinois and has around 8 wineries in all. We only managed to go to two, before we declared it a day. But oh what fun it was!

That barn like building on the left is the Pomona Winery where we had a wine tasting session, with the master winemaker going over his entire wine list with a whole bunch of people including us.

At the end of it, we bought a bottle of Orchard Harvest wine, while Koici bought two!

We got back on the wine trail and visited the Von Jakob Vineyard. It looked like a shed from the outside, but was beautiful and surprisingly huge on the inside. It was packed with people, all sipping various wines.

The only downer was the heat and humidity. The dog days of summer do not pleasant driving make.

So Koichi made us promise to wait for his next visit before we hit another vineyard on the wine trail!

3 comments:

Leah Fo Shizzle Bizzle said...

oh i love love love Koichi!!! i am jealous he was there to visit you guys!

Lizzie said...

Dude, like I said before serious FOMO, but now it turns out that I have ROMO...REALITY of Missing Out. :)

PJ said...

Ha ha, it was a fun weekend. You girls should come and visit us sometime! :)