Kumagaya

After lugging our bags up the steps of the train station in hideous heat we finally settled in for our hour and a half train ride to Mick's old home town of Kumagaya. Mick lived in Kumagaya for about 9 months ..5 years ago. Kumagaya is a rural town and is sort of like Toowoomba in that has agriculture & industry. It also has mad heat.
We caught a cab to New Neo hotel and booked in. We thought we would go for a wander around and within half an hour of walking found 3 rockabilly shops that sold awesome repro vintage clothes.. Mainly Sun Surf shirts... sigh. Michael Lind would have gone spastic!
Very expensive stuff though and mainly menswear.
We walked along the Hoshikawa which is like a canal that runs through the city.
After about 1 1/2 hours I was dieing in the heat so we headed to the nearest shopping centre.
Again I was totally blown away by all of the fantastic stuff that you can buy. We headed to the chemist & bought some cooling spray & some deep heat stuff. I wanted to buy all the cheap make up. We headed up to the top level and hit the Purikura which is where for about 400 yen (about $5 Aus) you go into a booth & it takes about 5 different photos of you .. You then go into a different booth & you can decorate your pictures with cartoon stuff. It is SO much fun!
We headed back to the hotel to freshen up & then headed to Mick's favourite drinking bar...
THE DOG'S NOSE!