Hiroshima

We caught our bus to the train station with a couple of Aussies from Melbourne. There was only the four of us on the big McCaffertys style bus and we were sitting directly behind the driver, yet he had to use the microphone. Our Aussie friends were really really lovely.

Alas, at the transit centre we had to part ways but no before we exchanged Facebook details.



Mick and I jumped into our shinkansen (super high speed train about 300 km/hr!!) and settled in for our 5 hour journey to Hiroshima. We had one brief change of trains and finally arrived at Hiroshima at 5pm. We grabbed some cash out at the post office & caught a taxi to K's House Hostel. Our room is super small BUT with an awesomely comfortable western style bed!!! air conditioning & our own bathroom. SWEET.

Without delay we caught the mega packed (squishy) tram down to the A-bomb Dome on the river. There are not enough adjectives to express just how beautiful, tragic, sad, moving, calming, amazing, breath-taking the A-bomb Dome & Peace Garden is.
We walked around the gardens looking at all the various memorials for around one and a half hours. We didn 't say much and it was a very emotional experience. I found myself getting a bit teary at the beauty and sadness of the place. Very moving. The A-bomb dome looked particulary good as nighttime fell and it was lit up.
It was now getting a bit dark so we started the walk back to the hostel. It was a lovely mild night.
Getting close to the hostel we went down a bit of a side street & stuck our head into a restaurant.
Inside the small place was decorated with all manner of retro Japanese things. 1950s advertisements, movie posters, toys and advertisments. The boss was a young fella who was really lovely and friendly and explained that is is into Rock and Roll.
We ordered some lemon sour drinks & had sashimi & Karage (spicy fried chicken).
We then walked the rest of the way back to the hostel & set up the computer in the common room.
Soon the room began to fill up with the other guests. We sat up until about 1am chatting with people from Denmark, Chile, North Carolina, Vancouver, California & a French guy called Batiste from Kangaroo Point in Brisbane. It was a really fun night.

Off to the mythical Mt Fuji

We got up quite early to make our trip to Mt Fuji. After catching the train to transit station we FINALLY worked out where we had to catch our bus to Fuji (wayyy over the other side of the shopping centre). We then had to wait for an hour for our bus so we sat on the ground like beggers & ate onigiri.

Our bus trip was very very relaxing and we passed the time by making up a story about Bridge Monkeys.. Before they built the bridges way out in the country-side the locals employed monkies to carry their luggage across the valleys. These animals were called Brunkies.

We arrived at Mt Fuji 2 hours later at about 3pm. The weather was a nicer 18 degrees. However, the mountain was completely covered with cloud and so we didn't even get a glimpse.

We hired 2 mountain bikes from K's house hostel and hit the village. I hadn't ridden a bike since I was about 12 and I cracked the darks more than once. And then a school girl road me off the foot path into a bush. We cycled with me screaming & yelping ARRRRR scared that I was going to be hit by a car any moment! We hit a store called "Bulldogs" which is kind of like Crazy Clarks but with more weird stuff. Our legs were aching so we headed for our favourite Japanese site.....Mos Burger!

We came back to our room (a very traditional Japanese room with waferthin futons).

After checking our facebook and emails we walked back to where Mos Burger was but went to the noodle restaurant next door. We had yummy gyoza & ramen.

We strolled back to our room and settled in for an uncomfortable night of sleep.

Visits to KKB Mick's old work

We took a taxi out of Mick's old workplace - KKB. A lovely lady that Mick used to work with called Kay was shocked & surprised to see Mick again and quickly ushered us into a little table area and bought us some iced coffee (literally just a cold cup of black coffee with ice cubes). Soon a few more people stuck there heads in to say hello.
Kaneko joined us and then so did the boss. There were very honoured that Mick had made the effort to come and visit the company. The boss presented Mick with his business card and then they bought us out gifts of a beautiful fan & Japanese cloth. We told them that we were planning to go to Chi Chi Buya for dinner when the boss turned to Kaneko and instructed him that he was to take us out for dinner and drinks & pick us up. Too bad if he had something else on!
We finally left and Kaneko insisted on driving us back to New Neo Hotel. We organised to meet them at the restaurant at 7pm.

Walks along the Arakawa River

Today we woke up to find the weather surprisingly milder than usual so we decided to go for a walk along the Arakawa River which was about a 20 min walk from the hotel.
There were a few people fishing and a number of people had set up barbeques underneath the bridge. The smell from the barbies was quite yummy.
The river was quite pretty if not a bit rocky. I was very tempted to jump into the cool water!

It was lovely & relaxing walking on the water though.

Later that afternon after refreshing up we headed back up to Dog's Nose again, this time by ourselves and to eat.

We started with a plate of olives & pickles and a plate of assorted cheeses & crackers.

For mains Mick decided to have Kumi's famous mustard chicken & I went for the deep fried chicken with blue cheese. YUMMO!

For dessert Kumi & Bob gave us a complimentary plate of sliced Japanese white peaches chilled on ice. OMG so good. So sweet & refreshing. It was a quiet night in the downstairs bar (upstairs a DJ hip hop party was rockin) so Mick got to have a good catchup with Kumi & Bob.

When it was finally time to say good-bye we exchanged emails & Bob & Kumi gave us a gift of a small bottle of champagne, a traditional cloth & a beautiful fan. It was just such a lovely night.
I am glad that we had a chance to say good-bye & thank you to them both.

The sites of Kumagaya

Rugby Union night at Andy & Mayumi

At about 6.00 Andy came to pick us up to go to his house to watch the Aussies VS the All Blacks in Rugby Union. We firstly stopped at the grocery store (like Coles) to pick up supplies. I could spend hours in these stores just looking at all the unreal foods & packaging. I found Mango flavoured & Orange flavoured Kit Kats.

We then went to Andy & Mayumi's house and watched his big screen TV while eating a huge amount of yummy food like - chicken skewers, Japanese cheese (drool), edamame and drinking red wine (Australian) & Chu Hi Lemon drink.

It was a fun game to watch even though Mick and I are particualary into Union. It was very surreal to be sitting in Japan watching Australia vs NZ with a Kiwi, 2 x Canadians and some Japanese. Later on Andy (who business is exporting honey products) bought out some royal jelly to try. It was kinda nice.. a bit tart. Finally at about 11.00 we caught a lift back to our apartment.

Kumagaya - Day Two

We rolled out of bed around 11.00 and headed to the station and caught a cab to Saty shopping centre. Being inside the aircon is lovely. Again the pull of the toy department was too hard to resist. We also wandered upstairs to the cinemas. On the wall they had a big flatscreen TV with the movie""Bolt" playing in 3D. We grabbed the 3D glasses (which look very similar to Buddy Holly glasses) and stood there for a good 10 minutes watching. It was bloody cool!

I was very naughty and stole a pair of glasses.

For a change we thought we would try Japanese Italian food & sat down at Olivia's Italian restaurant. There was some very interesting Engrish on the menu. We settled on a tomato, cheese & basil pizza which was super delicious.

Afterwards we wandered across to another shopping centre Yagihashi which is more upmarket & ritzy. We were also horrified to discover that Crocs not only have shoes over here but mobile phone covers & handbags! Eeek.