Surprise!

So we had said good-bye to Takumi and Julieta.  We had had a great two days together despite the typhoon.  The two of them went to Hokkaido for a week to...?  Tetsu and I sat back and talked about our various conversations with each of them separately and together.  Maybe we will hear from them again before they leave for California?

Then Tuesday night around bedtime I got a photo from Julieta. 

What is this?  Where are they?

And the next message from Julieta was,

"Of course I said yes."

WHAT!!!!???  TAKUMI HAS PROPOSED!!!!!

Oh what a romantic my son has turned out to be!  I never would have thought he'd put such thought into the place and time of his proposal!  And down on one knee even!!!

Julieta was all shaken up by the surprise proposal and said she had had to sit down for about half an hour she was so light-headed.  I pieced the details through a few more messages.  The photos were taken by "some innocent bystander" whom they had ask to take their picture.  Takumi had obviously been planning this trip to Sapporo with the purpose of proposing for a long time.

I asked if Julieta knew what was coming and she said not until Takumi began stuttering and got down on one knee did she guess that this was going to be the big night, though they had been talking of getting married for quite a while now.  Takumi presented the ring, Julieta said yes and Takumi closed up the box and started to get up...

"Aren't you going to put it on my finger?"

A little nervous perhaps?  And Takumi said there were an awful lot of people around grinning and observing the very public proposal.

I think that the hillside that Takumi and Julieta-san were at is a lovers look-out with the night view of Sapporo spread out beyond.  We recalled that Takumi had said that he and Julieta were planning to take in the night scenery of Sapporo though Tetsu and I had never heard of the place they were going.  From the pictures it looks like there is a place for lovers to ring a bell to peal out their love to the city and there is also a place to leave a lock declaring their everlasting love.

I am SOOO happy to get this nearly on the spot photo-shoot and am grateful to the innocent bystander who took the very nice photos of Takumi and Julieta.

To celebrate Tetsu and I are going to try to get together with the two of them one more time before they leave Japan on Monday.

Introducing Takumi and my daughter-in-law-to-be, Julieta!!!