Blarg 25 January!

Today was mainly a travel day. We were allowed to sleep in at Kosuke's because there wasn't a list of things to do. We had a delicious breakfast prepared by his mum and then watched some T.V. before leaving.

We were watching a telecast of some school's production. There were lots of short songs and dances performed by the children, who ranged in age from about 1 year old to maybe 10. Most of the songs were about some cultural aspect of Japan, but others were about other countries or something different. It was funny watching the littlest kids, who just didn't understand what was going on. There were lots of tears, and towels thrown in, and one little girl fell off the stage. They had lots of helping people to point the kids in the right direction. Some songs featured 4-year-old girls in skimpy tops and tiny skirts doing dance moves from the Cutie Honey movie. I felt weird watching it, but I guess it's not a sensitive issue here. They were cute.

Kosuke's mum Keiko made us special Chyampon Ramen (chyampon is Nagasaki dialect for "everything mixed together"). It usually has one million prawns and squids and octopus, but it's special because it was made of chicken stock for me. It was delicious, but huge and an early lunch.

They took us to the train and even paid for the cheapest ticket so they could come through the gate and wait for us to leave. Kosuke's family is really lovely! I think they enjoyed having us too.

The first train from Isahaya station to Hakata was so lovely! It had a wooden floor and art in the toilets. Kyushu has the nicest scenery of all of Japan, I think. I HAVE SEEN ALL OF JAPAN.

From Hakata we took the Hikari shinkansen to Hiroshima. It was a short walk to our hotel (it said 3 minutes on the website, but more like ten. They always lie), which is a youth hostel. We have a private room with an ensuite though. Charles says that the website said it was a converted business hotel.

We lazed around for a couple of hours, and then went out to get dinner. We stopped at a close Yakiniku restaurant. It seems like their speciality was offal, but I didn't want offal, so we had regular beef and vegetables. They gave us a FIRE POT with a grill over it, and vegetables and slices of raw marinated meat. We cooked it ourselves on the grill and it was DELICIOUS! The vegetables were a bit weird, I think maybe we did them wrong. Then we got bits of chicken, which were also delicious, and then a bit of "cattle tail slices" which had bits of vertebrae in them which was weird. But DELICIOUS! I guess it's good that they're using the whole cow. We also ordered two types of ice-cream which was DELICIOUS. And I had a humongous beer! It was very light. The staff at this restaurant were really lovely and talked to us a bit.

Now we're at "home" already, and we're going to watch some Arashi program which is on tonight. We wouldn't have known, but Kosuke's mum knows I like Arashi and told me about it. Three posts in one night!