Wednesday, 24th of December

Chucky: We spent the morning at Emi's place hanging out with the family and packing up our bags. Chrissy had a sleep because she still has a cold and I found things in our luggage to throw out. Eventually we got both the bags packed and both were lighter than 20kgs (just!). We said goodbye to everybody and Emi and her Mum took us to the station where we waited around for the Kodama shinkansen to take us to Tokyo. The shinkansen trip was comfortable and we got an AMAZING view of Fuji san. AMAZING. Just like a postcard. Fuji-san is really big.
Chrissy: When we arrived at Tokyo station we had to catch another train to Ueno, so we joined in with the crowd and rushed through the station and onto a train. The walk to our hotel was fairly short but extremely crowded. Yay! Back in crowded Tokyo!
After we got settled we went out to find some dinner. We went to some upstairs place which looked a bit seedy at first but turned out to be DELICIOUS food. We had a bacon Okonomiyaki and some yaki-soba. Despite telling the waiter that I don't eat prawns, I found some tiny tiny tiny prawn-type animals in the yaki-soba. After eating a bunch of it. I had thought that they were little slices of pickled ginger, because they're exactly the same colour. I had to look really closely, but they were definately miniature prawns. I stopped eating and began to worry about it. I did start to feel sick, but it's all better now and the worry was probably causing the nausea after all. Maybe I'm NOT allergic to prawns? They were only very tiny, so maybe I am? Charles tells me that tomorrow we're having a whole lobster for lunch.
We walked around the area for a while, which looked fairly seedy with lots of bouncers with earpieces walking around being tough. I don't know who they were bouncing. We went to Don Quiote which is a huge chain that sells everything. Literally everything. Headphones, chewing gum, ballgowns, tinsel. It even had imported Tim Tams and Pringles!
We went to a Lawon's and a 7/11 and a Family Mart and bought some Christmas Cake and a miniature bottle of champagne for a Christmas celebration. HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Tuesday, 23rd December

Chrissy: Today we went to a different area of Fukuoka to try to find Kinokunia and do some other shopping. We found the building it was supposed to be in, but it wasn't there. It turned out to be the most frivolous shopping plaza I've ever seen. Perfume, cosmetics and a ridiculous amount of clothes shops. No bookshops, no food shops, no chemists, carpenters or any other kind of shop. It was the worst.

We found a bookshop in the building next door. It wasn't Kinokunia, but it might as well have been because it was so well-stocked and had exactly what we were looking for - a Japanese version of Tintin for Emi's 7-year-old nephew. Also I found an actually good clothes shop where I bought a really nice - and really cheap - red coat. It's amazing.

Charles:
We also had a donut from MR DONUT. It was pretty good. Bookshops in Japan are different. There are bookshops everywhere and most of them are books for people to read on trains. They look like libraries with rows of shelves full of identically sized books. The only sections we can see is the broad difference between plain coloured normal books and zany manga. These kind of bookshops have no kids books and are totally useless for us.

Also how come Chrissy can find a rad coat for 3000 yen and Chucky can only find one for CONSIDERABLY more. Mysteries of fashion.

THE STORY CONTINUES.

We had our longest shinkansen trek ever back to Emi's place. having gotten back to Hakata station, we had to take a 2.5 hour trip to Osaka. Then we got directly onto another shinkansen which took 1.5 hours to get to Mikawa-Anjo station. The second trip was nicer because we got to see Kyoto again out the window. Yay Kyoto tower! Yay world's biggest tin shed!

We got to the station at 6:09 and Emi was waiting for us at the gate with her Mum in the car. We were really happy to see them again! Travelling is fun but its nice to see familiar faces. We went home and presented presents to the family and the kids.

Dinner was enormous because it was a celebration for (big) Emi's birthday. Yum. Their food is the best. (Especially the miso soup)

After dinner, Moka-chan kept asking Chrissy "yonde kudasai! yonde kudasai!" (read to me! read to me!) so Chrissy had to battle through a bit of Frog and Toad which was luckily in Hiragana. Hopefully Moka-chan understood the words because we didn't. We also had fireworks (I think birthday celebrations as well). These were fun. Japanese fireworks are similar but somewhat more dangerous than ours. Yikes!

We had a bath and then watched an episode of our new favourite drama with (normal) Emi. The drama is called Zettai Kareshi (absolute boyfriend) and is about a girl who volunteers for a trial of a robot entirely dedicated to love. Deep philosophical exploration of what it means to be human. Not. We have been watching this and some other shows on the trains on the small lappy.

Anyway, we remembered that we left a lot of stuff here and have been going through it throwing useless things out. Carrying our bags has lessened our love of useless things.

Thursday, 18th December

We got up and had a complimentary breakfast at our Okayama hotel. It was western-style with toast and things, and cute fruit salads with 1 piece of pineapple, 1 grape and 1 tiny piece of orange in a small plastic container. I had three (giving the pineapple to Charles).
We left our luggage with the staff and HIT the TOWN. First we went to the Okayama park via the Ugliest Fountain Ever. We went over a Smelly River and found the park and had to pay to get in. It was a pretty park with lots of little different things in it, like a crane (the bird) enclosure and several tea houses and fish in the ponds.
Next we went to the castle. When we found out that it was 800 yen each to go in, we decided to just look at the castle.
"Is that the Castle beyond the Goblin City?"
"Turn back Sarah. Turn back before it's too late."
Then we went back into town and had a coffee and cake break at a cafe. YUM. We went to Loft department store where I bought a Frog and Toad book for Emi's niece for Christmas. It's in Japanese so her mum will be able to read it to her. I loved Frog and Toad when I was little! They also had frog and toad soft toys but I restrained myself as they were poorly made and I think I could do better myself.
We got our luggage and took a taxi to the station (it's a long annoying way and I wasn't feeling too well) and got the shinkansen easily. It was an uneventful ride and I got to watch The Wonder Years on the lappy. Aw Kevin!
At Osaka it was an easy trip to our hotel because it's just over the road from the station. It's a business hotel, and our room is smaller than other times. The bed was advertised as being a "semi-double" which is ... compact. We will manage. Maybe one of us will sleep upside down. The man at the desk had some confusion when he thought we were a guy called Frank. We managed to communicate in the end.
After a brief rest we went out again, taking the (unfortunately NOT JR) subway into the city, where there is the largest underground shopping arcade in Japan (or the world?). We found Metamorphose which was smaller than the one in Kyoto, but had some shoes on sale and I was able to communicate with the adorable shop girl enough to try them on and figure out that there was only one size - too small. She even took out the laces for my gargantuan foot! No shoes for me.
Then we walked around the corner to the Aranzi Aronzo shop. Aranzi Aronzo is a shop that sells merchandise to do with some characters that you can make. It's hard to explain, but I have two Aranzi Aronzo craft books which tell me how to make all these little felt animals. The shop sells other stuff with pictures of those animals, and storybooks about them. I bought Chucky some boxer shorts with Robot Panda and Normal Panda on them, and he bought me a little tiny calander with pictures of all the characters. We also got a little postcard book and I bought a small bag and some stickers. The lady gave me a tiny purse to go with the bag for FREE! I was so happy to be there. There's a character that's a little scotty dog which is based on the owner's dog Tetsu. In the shop there were photos of the real Tetsu and a bowl and a leash and a mat where he usually sits. I wish we could've seen Tetsu!
On the way back to the station we got food at a place in the arcade. There was no English menu so the waitress came outside with us so we could point to the plastic food we wanted. Almost every Japanese restaurant has creepily realistic plastic food in the window. I also managed to say that I don't eat prawn. Yay!
We only got a little bit lost at our station. It's big!
I'm feeling homesick tonight, so we watched Monty Python on the lappy. Episode 2: The Larch.
Chucky promised that he would let me sleep in until TEN tomorrow.

December 17th

Charles: Today was basically a travel day, we were heading from Takayama in the Mountains to Okayama which is more south than Kobe and near the coast. We woke up, packed up our stuff and walked down the street to the station to get the 9:37 train to Nagoya. We weren't very happy with the ryokan because that morning our fridge locked itself and some of our food inside and I think I lost some earphones somewhere but we were in a hurry so we didn't take it up with the staff.

The train ride back to Nagoya was just as bumpy as going the other way, but we had a nicer time because we were prepared for the hot carriage. The views were really beautiful with the river below and fog falling down valleys above. This trip was just over two hours and we got to Nagoya at 12:00. We've been to Nagoya station a few times now so we headed directly to the shinkansen gates and ordered tickets. We thought that we would need to go further down the line and change to a lower level of shinkansen so we ordered tickets for Kyoto on Hikari 367 departing at 12:11. When we got to the platform (12:05) we saw on the board that Hikari 367 was going to Okayama! Chrissy was skeptical but I argued that we could go back downstairs and ask the man to rebook our tickets for Okayama. We ran down the stairs (me carrying both bags) and managed to get this concept across to the man and got new tickets for the same seats. We got to the platform again just as the train was pulling in, perfect timing hm? Chrissy didn't think so and spent the next few minutes staring me to death.

No trip to Japan is complete without a stressful shinkansen experience.

This train trip was smooth and relaxing and we got a nice view of Himeji castle as we zoomed past. We got to Okayama and 2:15 and wanted to take a taxi to the hotel. We thought this would be easy. Comfort Hotel, we could point to it on a map, it wasn't very far. The taxi driver couldn't understand us saying Ko n fo ru to Ho te ru and couldn't read the english name. Eventually we communicated and he thought it was so amusing that he laughed all the way up the street. We're on the 9th floor of the Comfort Hotel.

Our afternoon was slow because we were tired and Chrissy felt a bit sick. We got some takeaway for lunch and played on the internet. In the evening we went for a walk and found a nice mall with Kinokunia which, even in Japanese, is a fun shop. We tried to find a particular tofu restaurant but as a nice lady explained to us in English, tofu is a morning thing and it's a lunch place so we ate cheap katsu-don instead. Yum.

Chrissy: Chucky bought a fruit salad dessert that he thought would be pear, peach and apricot. It turned out to be pineapple, Something and Something. In jelly.
The hairdryer here actually dried my hair and didn't just warm it!

Belated December 15th

Today we got up early and had the breakfast at our Nara Ryokan (same as yesterday, except Salmon instead of other fish). We packed up and took ourselves to the Nara station – quite a long walk but at least this time it was downhill!

Our newly activated JR pass works like magic. We just showed it to the guy at the ticket gate and he welcomed us through with a smile. We took a limited express train to Kyoto which filled up pretty quickly. We were then able to grab a bento box and get a Shinkansen to Nagoya, which took around 40 minutes. We were lucky enough to be in time to catch that hour’s train to Takayama. The weather forecast for Takayama today was 4 degrees and snow. So I had dressed really warmly for the day – thermal pants and top. The train from Nagoya to Takayama was very comfortable, with a lot of leg space and toilets and a food trolley. But it was incredibly hot and really bumpy – two things that do not go well with me. There was a thermometer IN the carriage and it was 26.8 degrees. It got down as far as 24.5 and then went up again. It was a 2.5 hour trip. The scenery was beautiful though!

We were relieved to get to Takayama. It was about 3pm when we arrived. We found the hotel relatively easily compared to previous times. It’s a big ryokan, and we’re on the third floor. As usual at Ryokans, you are asked to take off your shoes at the entrance and leave them in the shoe cupboard by the door. Indoor slippers are provided at the door, which are these faux leather slippers with no backs that you just slide on. The problem is that whenever we walk, they slide off again. Having experienced this at Nara, we didn’t put them on, but then we were chased with them so we did and just shuffled.

We were showed to our room, which has a little alcove to leave your indoor shoes (no shoes whatsoever on the Tatami mats) and your bags. A sliding paper door revealed a 12-mat room with a low wooden table, a television and kettle, cups, teapot and REAL TEA, a balcony area with a small table, and a bathroom with a shower/bath and toilet. No futons.

We went out to the Combini to get some late lunch and got some Inari sushi and a Meron bread. We looked around and saw the river and some interesting looking shops. It was cold. We went back and looked up some places to eat and decided to eat at a place around the corner, but first to look at the internet downstairs.

The internet was 100 yen per ten minutes! Outrageous! I put in 100yen and almost sent an email before it shut down on me. I’m writing this in Word and I’m going to post it tomorrow at the train station where they have internet.

We went to this place around the corner which had a really nice atmosphere and ordered Sukiyaki. It was a bowl of raw cabbage, bean sprouts, mushrooms, tofu, onion and the famously amazing Hida beef (Hida is the area we’re in now), all in a soy-based sweet sauce. This was placed over a burner and set on fire, and we were told to turn it all over and cook it up together. It was fun and tasted amazing. We were also given miso soup, rice, two lots of Japanese pickles, and unlimited green tea. It was delicious!

We walked towards Family Mart and bought some chocolates called Melty Kiss that I’ve been curious about since our first day in Japan, and also some dessert. When we got back, futons had been spread for us! Like stealthy ninjas they waited until we had our backs turned and then BAM! Futon attack!

I had a lovely bath in the hotel’s ladies’ bath (Japanese style) where I could take as long as I wanted because nobody else was there. We ate the dessert I bought and it turned out to be coffee cream on top and underneath… coffee jelly. Weird.

Monday 1st of December

Charles: Today our task was to get to Emi's hometown. We had to take two lines to get to Tokyo station from Akasaka which was extremely difficult because of our variety of bags and the variety of stairs and escalators.

Chrissy: I had several nasty moments when on the train, my handbag fell off my luggage and my stuff fell out, and later going up and escalator my luggage slipped down the step and I went with it. Luckily there weren't many people around to fall into, but I nearly cried and there were about 20 escalators to go.

Charles: Eventually we got to the station and Emi negotiated the ticket purchases. We were going on the Kodama shinkansen.

The trip took a few hours and we spent the time looking at the different scenery along the way. For a few minutes we had a brief view of Fuji-san before clouds covered it up. It is a very tall mountain and was quite an imposing scene.

When we reached the station, Emi's parents and sister and nephew were out to greet us. They drove us back to Emi's house where we got to have a walk around and relax in the traditional Japanese rooms. After a delicious dinner that Emi's mother prepared we got to meet her whole family and the families of her brother and sister. Finally, we had a proper Japanese bath in their hi-tech bathroom. Very relaxing. Now, we're about to go to sleep on the futons set out on tatami mats. Such a change from Tokyo!

Chrissy: I'm glad we finally got to relax a bit. Tokyo is fun but we were run off our feet! However, Emi's whole family has planned out our week for us, so we'll be getting up early every day!