September 2023 recap - Iowa wedding, Akadake hike & my birthday

September is very much a transition month - not only between summer and fall (weather) but also with what we've been up to.

Wedding in Iowa

It was very much a journey to get from Kanagawa to Des Moines. It took me a while to figure out the best route (in terms of travel time, preferred layover locations and times and cost). First step, get to Haneda Airport where we got to take advantage of our new lounge access. We flew with Hawaiian Airlines from Haneda to Honolulu. 

Once in Honolulu, we spent the day with our families (and I also went to the dentist lol) before we got dropped off back at the airport for a red eye flight via Hawaiian Airlines to Las Vegas.

We arrived a bit early in the morning but didn't have a ton of time, so we chose to just explore Harry Reid Airport a little and relax in the lounge.

Last flight until we arrive at our destination - LAS to DSM via Allegiant Airlines. We made sure we downsized our bags during our layover in Hawaii and just had one carry on between the two of us.

We had booked the Comfort Inn in Des Moines for our 3-night stay where a handful of other guests for the wedding were staying as well, including my other good friend who shared a rental car with us. These rooms were much larger than the hotel rooms we were used to in Japan haha. It even had 2 queen beds in it! And it came with a complimentary breakfast.

We had one full free day in Des Moines before the wedding, so we went to check out the Iowa State Capitol which was under renovation but still really impressive looking, I thought lol. 

We also went to the Jordan Creek Town Center where we did a bit of browsing/shopping and killed some time by watching a movie. To help keep us awake with the bad jet lag, we also went to the hotel gym for a little bit. 

The next morning (day of the wedding which was at night), we stopped by the Pappajohn Sculpture Park but only walked around a little bit because it happened to be super hot this day! 

Ready for the wedding wearing the same dress I've worn as a wedding guest for about 5 or 6 weddings now lol. 

My friend and his wife were legally married in Honolulu (where they both live), but were having a cultural celebration and Tai Dam ceremony here in Des Moines. This was my first time experiencing anything from Laotian culture.

All of the food was made or provided by someone in the family and the expected guest count was quite large for this event! It was very lively and the variety of food was really amazing.

Congratulations to this lovely couple who I would travel to Iowa for any time 💍

The next morning, we were back at DSM and on our returning Allegiant flight back to Las Vegas!

We had a longer layover this time, so I met up with my friend from college and her husband and they took us out to lunch which was also an amazing food experience! Thankful they were able to meet up with us and recommend this restaurant.

Chilling at the lounge continued.

For our flight on Hawaiian from LAS to HNL, we were somehow able to get first class lay flat seats for just the equivalent of $50 in miles more than the economy seats, so of course we opted in. Excellent service and super comfortable for the 5 hour flight.

Arrived back in Honolulu at night after spending all day flying (starting in CT --> PT --> HST) and just settled in to sleep at my parents' house. And then just like that, the next day we were back at the airport on Hawaiian headed back to Haneda (but much less comfortable in economy for 8 hours lol)!

It was a lot of travel - about 17 hours over to Des Moines and 18 hours back to Tokyo (not including the layovers of course - we spent SO much time at airports because we never wanted to miss our flight), really took a toll on us. The jet lag was absolutely killer going to Iowa, and my husband spent so much time sleeping during the daylight hours while we were there haha. It was a Wednesday night to Tuesday night trip, but with just 2.5 days in our true destination! I probably won't return to the American midwest any time soon, but I'm glad we had the opportunity to see it and celebrate with my friends. 

Mt Akadake (Southern Yatsugatake) hike

We had a slightly fail hiking trip in August where we ended up hiking Tengudake despite intending to hike Iodake (previously blogged here). Akadake is the tallest peak of the same Yatsugatake mountain region in Chino, near the edge of Nagano and Yamanashi.

M&M joined us again (or we joined them? haha) and finally we were able to hike without rain. There wasn't really any view at the top, but at least we were able to see the start of some of the autumn colors when the sun came out during our descent. Full blog post here. 

What we ate

Taniokas and CPK on Oahu

Hessen Haus in Des Moines

Comfort Inn complimentary breakfast

Sbarro and Chik-fil-a from a mall in Des Moines

The Sundry food hall in Las Vegas

Hawaiian Airlines first class meal (LAS --> HNL) 

Assorted take out dim sum from various restaurants in Honolulu's Chinatown 

Toriyoshi

Kappa Sushi

Ramen Kz

Teddy's Bigger Burger in Kamakura

Sunrise Shack in Kamakura

Yuzu-an (sukiyaki broth)

Costco food court

Maisen tonkatsu

Cookies and cream rolled ice cream from Roll Ice Cream Factory in Shibuya

Friends birthday potluck (for our other friend whose birthday is a week before mine)

This was just a very small portion of the food that everyone contributed

Kura Sushi

Sarina Indian-Nepalese Restaurant

Kosaku (Houtou restaurant) in Kofu

Chateraise dessert

Personal life/Miscellaneous 

This month's OOTDs can be found here. I didn't have so many this month because of the trip at the beginning (during which I did not document outfits) and some time out of the office, but I still had a few that I really enjoyed!

This was essentially my last chance to be wearing outfits without at least a light outer, so I made sure I wore a few pieces that I thought don't pair the best with cardigans. 

I had a bit of free time in the middle of the month, so I finally got around to taking the individual photos/videos for my shoe collection post! If you haven't seen it yet, please check it out here.

We had some turmoil at work with a lot of supervisory roles switching around, people leaving and in general just some administrative chaos. There's also been a wave of illness moving around lately (not entirely sure if it's COVID specifically or just a cold) and I was finally getting a little more comfortable not constantly wearing my mask :/. But nevermind!

My husband and I both had training (two separate ones at two different times during the month) that wrecked our sleep schedule a bit during this month since they were on PT or ET, so that meant we took advantage of some of the weekends to sleep in more (instead of planning something and going out). 

And at the end of the month, it was my birthday! It was really nice to receive this autumnal colored arrangement from my brother (ordered online with the help of my husband) and also a celebratory balloon arrangement from my husband, making me feel so loved!

We had done a birthday celebration at our house for one of our friends whose birthday was exactly one week before mine the weekend prior, so we were already decorated and partied out, which suits me just fine. Cheers to 32!