The alarm woke me up about 6.30 this morning. It was not easy getting out of bed – I really needed a few more hours sleep. But no such luxury today.

We got up, and packed the final things in to our bag. It seemed like it may be a bit too heavy (~72 kg total).   I decided we can just deal with it at the airport. We had our last breakfast together with Okasan and Ottosan, and loaded up the car with our 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, massage table and Kaoru’s handbag, and left the house about 7.30. Ottosan took us to the bus stop.

The first bus didn’t let us on as it was already too full. So we caught the second one (about 10 minutes later – but the last one for 2 hours!). It took us about an hour to get to the airport. Terminal 3 opened a month or two ago (and we’ve never done budget airlines – we’re on Jetstar for this flight) so neither of us had done departures from there before. It was quite easy. Our bags came to exactly 70kg – couldn’t do any better if we had tried!

I had a beer left so enjoyed that at the airport, we went through customs and immigration (submitting the paperwork from yesterdays shopping) and waited for the plane. It boarded on time, and apart from it being 15 minutes of taxi-ing, the flight was normal.

We went through photos on the plane, and deleted all the duplicate and bad ones. Not much else to do when you’re travelling cattle class in a budget airline, with no movies to watch or alcohol to drink! I got a bit of work done until the battery went flat (my power supply was under the plane in my suitcase).

Eventually we landed, no problems with customs and immigration. Brett came and picked us up from the airport, and we went home. Tired, and very happy after an enjoyable holiday.  Don’t know how we’re going to top this one!

It was a relaxing morning. Kaoru was already up by the time i awoke at 7.15ish. She had been shuffling our stuff around to see the best way to get our bags packed. We had breakfast of scallops and noodles and then i had some work to take care of.

Kaoru came in and asked if i wanted to see the godzilla statue in shinjuku. Sounded like something i needed to see! So we cleared up and made our way.

First off we went to first kitchen and took a photo of us at the meeting spot from our wedding trip – just for fun. Then Kaoru went to a pharmacy to buy some cosmetics as they would be duty free Hopefully it doesn’t blow our luggage allowance!   During this i remembered my bluetooth headset was playing up so thought it a good time to get a replacement. I had a look at a shop and Kaoru suggested another so we walked around Shinjuku. Then we saw it… So we stopped and took a couple of photos.

A bit more walking, and I was totally lost – despite having spent a couple of weeks in Shinjuku just 12 months earlier.    Kaoru hadn’t been there for just as long, and hadn’t been seriously around the area in even longer, yet was walking around like she owned the place.  I guess she’s done it so much that she knows it like the back of her hand.  So we looked in Bic Camera for my earpiece, but it was WAY too expensive there.  We then had to catch our train so rushed off, and thought we’d come up with a plan later.  On the way to the train, Kaoru found an ATM and was able to do some banking she needed to do, as she has de-citizenised herself from Japan on this trip.

We made the train to Yokohama, and then on the Yokohama subway 1 stop.  We got up to street level and Ryu was there waiting for us with Haruka.  Wow – I saw her briefly at our wedding but that was 12 months ago.  She has grown so much!  She turns 3 in a few months.  She didn’t recognise us, and was very shy.

It was less than a 10 minute walk to Ryu and Naoko’s new house.  Still up hill all the way, but not as steep as their old one.  So it certainly had a tick from me!  Their old house used to kill me getting there!  Naoko was there when we arrived preparing lunch, so we went inside and said Hello, giving Haruka her Australian toy for this trip – a kookaburra that makes noise.  She was a bit freaked out by it – we’ll see what happens over time.  Her possum (from the first time we met her) is looking well loved!

Lunch was another fantastic feast.  Prawns in a sauce, Tonkatsu Chicken, vinegared vegetables…a few beers for Ryu and I… :).  They played a video Ryu took of our wedding which was great to see.  I don’t think I’ve seen any footage of our speeches before.  It was a fun afternoon – they are a great couple, and Ryu’s english is very good, thanks to his work, so I can communicate well with them.  He likes to “cut corners” and get Kaoru to translate when she is involved in the conversation, but when it’s just the two of us talking, he does a very good job.  This is something I see a lot of in Japan – male’s will talk fine in English until there is another person who can speak both languages.  Then they freeze up and utilise the translator.

Time flew and before we knew it, it was time to go.  So they walked us to the train station, we said goodbye, and were on our way to Yokohama.  Ryu had mentioned the shop we had seen for the bluetooth headset has a store in Yokohama so we went there to save going back to Shinjuku.  The lady there spoke very good English (which I congratulated and thanked her for – we were just lucky to have her serve us!) and I picked a unit to buy.  Then we caught the train back to Tokyo, and then subway to Nishikasai.

We called Okasan and Ottosan when we got to the station.  They walked down and then we caught a taxi to the restaurant we went to a few visits ago (sushi train).  It was very busy, and we had to wait for about half an hour for a table to be ready.  It may have been because of this being the end of Golden Week, so nobody wanted to cook.  It was the usual feast and sensory overload.  A nice last meal.

Kaoru and I managed to pay this time!  We then caught a taxi home and did a final pack, had a bath, and then off to bed.

This is a family of early risers. I could hear the kids downstairs doing homework, looked at the time and it wasn’t even 6.00! It had been a very windy night last night and the noise kept me up quite a lot. Because Kaoru and i were upstairs we had it the loudest – especially as we had lots of windows. So i was in no rush to get up.

I came downstairs at 8.00 and could smell food as soon as i opened the bedroom door. Everybody else was upuh so we had breakfast not long after. Then Kenichi and i got the router set up for when okasan and Otosan get Internet. The router Kenichi had bought didn’t reach to the second house so i showed him the ones i use for datascore and suggested he see if he can find them in Japan.

I had some work to do so spent the next couple of hours dealing with emails and high priority items. Then we went to lunch. We went to the same place we took Michael and Leila to when we arrived at nasu. But this time we got fishing rods and caught fish to eat. between the 3 girls we easily had enough fish. They were really biting today! So lunch was noodles followed by the cooked fish, salted and served while on a skewer. Really nice, although the small bones were a bit scratchy in my throat.

Kenichi, Kozue, Yukari and Minami had to leave from here so we said goodbye and went back to the house at Nasu. I dealt with a bit more work while Otosan had a sleep and the women chatted. At a bit before 3.00 we got in the car and drove to the train station and had a quick goodbye as we will be seeing okasan and Otosan again tomorrow. Mio, Arisa, Kaoru and i caught the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. There we said goodbye to them, and they caught a taxi home. We caught a train back to Nishikasai and walked from there.

Next job – let’s see what our weight is like. So we got our suitcases and shuffled things around. We had Kaoru’s massage table which was 18kg.we had already bought 65 kilos so hoped we could fit in there. We were very borderline. I wanted to buy a couple bottles of rare breed and worked out for an extra $37 in baggage we could save $80 from melbourne prices. Can’t argue with that logic. So we made the decision and eliminated the stress.

It was about a 30 minute walk to the supermarket we wanted to go to. I wanted to buy a 6 pack of beer for tomorrow, which came with a Suntory premium glass. We also bought some food for breakfast. Then we caught the free bus back to Kasai and went to an izakaya for dinner. We had a nice meal which included takoyaki in cheese! Then we went to the cheap alcohol shop for the rare breed, and walked home. A bit of pottering around the house, some work, and it was bedtime.

My day in paradise!

Every day I spend here at Nasu is enjoyable.  I love the mountain air, the country feel to everything, and to top it off, the family atmosphere here.

I woke up this morning around 7.00.  Everybody else was already awake.  So not long after coming down, breakfast was served.  This was our typical Japanese breakfast, all eating together, and naturally, with a large bowl of rice :).

After a nice and slow, relaxing start to the day I put my socks on and told Ottosan to put me to work.  So first job was he had a lot of thin, flat timber that had been under the house for years, that needed splitting for kindling.  So I spent some time with a hand axe working my way through that.  Kenichi went out to the outlet store to look at golf gear, and Okkasan, Kozue and the kids went out shopping.  So it was just Ottosan, Mio, Kaoru and I at the house.  We took it easy, and had a nice break for some green tea.  Ottosan started trying to split some larger wood with a couple of splitters – the wood was too big to fit in his hydrolic splitter.  So I took over that job from him as he wouldn’t leave it for me to do later, and then it was back to splitting the flat wood.

Once that was finished we moved it all out the back and had an ice cream.  The day was overcast, keeping it nice and cool.  This would have been a lot harder if it was as hot and sunny as yesterday was!  Then I got the chain saw out, took it apart and gave it a good clean, and then sharpened the blades, enjoying a nice cold beer in the process.  During this, everybody came home, and we stopped to have lunch, which included rice, sushi, and god knows what else but I ate and enjoyed it all!

After lunch I went back to finish the chain saw, and then also did the little chain saw, which didn’t take long to sharpen.  Then Kaoru and I went for a walk to enjoy the peace and quiet for a bit.  When we got back, Ottosan had his digger out.  Firstly, he shouldn’t be doing anything strenuous while I was around.  Secondly, this looked like fun and something I should take part in!  So I finished my beer and hopped on board, with a somewhat safety brief (in Japanese).  This was a lot harder than it looked.  Two levers, each with 4 directions, controlling different hydrolics.  I was able to get the hang of it a bit, but was still no professional.  It was fun trying, and also good being helpful.  At the end, I drove it back in to the shed without breaking anything, so that was a good finish, I thought :).

I grabbed a couple of beers and Kenichi and I had a chat.  I haven’t spoken to him a lot, and it was good to hear about his company being bought by Yahoo.  We talked about various things, including his business, Inflatable World, Datascore, etc.  It’s great having somebody who I can converse with, despite language differences, who is very similar to me with the IT background.  He is a very business savvy person, and has some ideas of what we can do with Inflatable World in Japan, so fingers crossed we can pull something off.

The kids had been practicing a dance routine, so they came out and gave us a performance.  Very enjoyable.  Yukari has been taking dance lessons and was clearly the choreographer.  After our show, it was dinner time, so we came down to the main house.  Ottosan was having a nap, so Kenichi and I had another beer, and then had dinner – our last one all together.  It was another enjoyable meal.

We finished off the bottle of muscat, and had some Jack Daniels, to finish the night off.  Then it was bath time, and people started drifting off to bed.  It’s currently 8.52, and most people have gone to sleep.  I guess given everybody wakes up so early, it’s no surprise they go to bed early!  It’s very different for me as I’m such a night owl.  But I’ll get to enjoy a nice relaxing bath to soothe the muscles after a hard days work.

It’s sad to think we are leaving Nasu tomorrow, and I don’t know when I will be seeing the family like this again – in fact, I think this is the first time we have all been together, other than our wedding (although Yoichi is missing, unfortunately).  I hope we can do it all again some time.  I can barely communicate with my family, but all I feel from them is love and support, and we always manage to laugh together and enjoy each others company – whether it be just with Mio and Arisa, or Mio, Yoichi, Kozue, Kenichi and the kids, or Kaoru’s parents.  It motivates me to want to learn more Japanese so I can communicate at least a bit with them all while we can still enjoy this time together.

The alarm was set for this morning, but I was awake before it went off.  We packed our bags and caught a taxi at 8.00, to Tokyo Shinkansen station.  We grabbed a bento box from the station – mine was eel, and waited for the 9.16 train to Nasuno.  We found our seats, and turned them around so the 4 of us could face each other (we had Mio and Arisa with us), and then it was *finally* time to eat breakfast.  Here was something new – my bento box had a string hanging out of it.  When we pulled that, there was a noise, and then a burst of steam, and the whole box started to heat up!  So not only can you buy hot drinks and food from a vending machine, but you can also buy cold things and heat them up!

It was a bit over an hour later that we arrived at our station – Nasushiobara.  We walked out of the station and there were people from a local show, with a sign saying “Why have you come to Nasushiobara?” (in Japanese, and also in English).  There were obviously surprised at a Westerner coming, so spoke to Kaoru about it, and then wanted a photo of me holding the sign.  We didn’t think to take a photo with my camera until it was too late :(.

We found Ottosan and went to the car.  He drove us to his friends bamboo forest.  People think it is a public forest and not private property, unfortunately, so they have wrecked parts of it.  But we were there by prior arrangement.  We waited for Kenichi, Kozue, Okasan, Yukari and Minami to turn up, and then it was time to find some bamboo!

The trick here was finding bamboo that was the right size.  If it was too long it would be too hard to eat.  If it was too short, there wasn’t enough.  Because we were so close to Tokyo, we couldn’t eat this bamboo as Sashimi – the soil isn’t of good enough quality to grow it well enough.  You can do this in Kyoto.  But it was fine for cooking.  I was shown how to find the right side, clear around the bamboo, and cut it with a mattock.  It was a lot easier than I was expecting.

Once we had collected enough bamboo we went to Okasan and Ottosan’s friends house, who owns the forest, for lunch.  She served a very bamboo-based meal for us that was delicious.  After lunch she pulled out an instrument which was a smaller and simpler version of a Koto.  It made a beautiful sound, and she had music to some traditional Japanese songs.  Remembering how Waltzing Matilda sounded at our wedding, I attempted to play that – but it didn’t bring a tear to my eye like it did at our wedding!

We left in two groups – one group (with the kids) was going shopping, and the other group were going back to the house.  Unfortunately not long after we left we got a call from Okasan, that she had the key to the house!  So we had to pull over at the shops and wait for them to catch up so we could get the key.  Mio came up with the idea of ice cream, so she and I went to get one while we were waiting.

Back in the car, it was a long fight with the traffic, before we finally arrived at the house.  We brought things inside, and then it was time for a beer and a relax.  This whole holiday has been go-go-go-go, and it was nice to just sit back, listen to the birds, and enjoy the fresh mountain air without having to think of packing, or unpacking, or what we were going to do for the afternoon or the next day.

I went upstairs for a siesta, which ended up taking about 2 hours!  By the time I came downstairs, it had actually started to cool off, and T-shirt and shorts were a little chilly.  I sat outside with Ottosan for a little bit, and then came in for a beer and put a long sleeved top on.  Then, at about 5.45, food started coming….and coming….and coming….and coming….  Eggplant, the sweetest of corn on the cob, Tako (octopus), salmon roe (beautiful – from Hokaido), wagu beef…..rice….wine… beer.  I realised half-way through dinner that it was Sunday, and we were having Sunday dinner with our other family!  Usually we would be at Mum and Dad’s house (with just as many people).  We thought it would have been fun if we could have gotten Mum and Dad on Skype and had a big “virtual” dinner!  Then we remembered that Dad was in Tasmania for a golf holiday, so hoped Mum was at Julie’s for dinner.  For dessert I brought down a bottle of muscat that I had brought from Australia, which was mainly drunk by Kenichi and myself, with Ottosan and Kozue having a half glass (we had about 1/2 – 2/3 of the bottle, so a bit left for tomorrow).  Mio had a migraine so went and had a laydown, and Kenichi, Kozue, Ottosan, the kids and I went outside with some fireworks.  It’s legal here, although they weren’t anything big.  The girls got a buzz out of it though, as young kids do.

Back inside, Kaoru and Okasan had mostly cleaned up.  So we showed them photos of our last few days travelling around Japan, and by this time we were all pretty tired.  So after a bath (in my favourite bath of all time!), I was ready to call it a night too.  Looking forward to a day of relaxing tomorrow – nothing to do, other than activities around the house.

So, basically, tonight there is Kozue, Kenichi, Yukari, Arisa an Minami in the second house (my favourite hosue), Kaoru and I upstairs at the main house, and Okasan, Ottosan and Mio downstairs in the main house.

It’s nights like these that I can’t help but be thankful for the family I have.  With all Mum and Dad do for us back in Australia, and how Okasan and Ottosan are equally as giving when we are here in Japan.  We are so lucky, and I’m glad I’ve been able to recognize and appreciate just how lucky I am – a gift that I have only appreciated since Kaoru came in to my life.

No alarms.  Nothing to wake up for.  What bliss!!!  Just lots of traffic as this is the official start to golden week.  I woke up around 8.00 and Kaoru was already up and at it.  I was feeling sore in areas I hadn’t felt sore for a long time, after our travelling.  We had masuzushi sushi for breakfast, which we had bought back in Toyama.  Mazuzushi is done in the “Oshizushi”, or “pressed” style.  The packing was in true japanese style – just beautiful.  It was wrapped in bamboo leaves, then served in a thin wooden (almost balsa wood) dish, with cross pieces to hold it all together tightly.

After breakfast I spent some time catching up on work things.  A skype to Brett to deal with a problem back home – the usual stuff.  A bit more work, and then Kaoru and I went out to lunch.  It was quite warm outside so I wasn’t very hungry.  I was thinking cold noodles would be nice, but we couldn’t find anywhere that had them.  Apparently it was too early in the season for it to be the “norm” in Japan.  So we ended up at a western style shop and had a roll and a macha latte.  That should keep us going.

We then started to walk back to the house, chatting away, when somebody came up to us and asked Kaoru if she spoke English (obviously knowing she did as he could hear us talking).  He was Russian and just arrived.  He had dropped his bags off at his hotel but couldn’t check in yet, and had no money.  So we took him to a Western Union Credit Union to change money – good deed for the day done!

Back at home we packed our bags for the afternoon, and then went out to spoil ourselves after our week away – with a massage!  It was an hour of just relaxing and having all the sore muscles worked on – what more could you ask for?

We walked back to the house, grabbed our bags, had a quick beer, and then we were away again.  We walked to the train station, and on the way could see some Westerners talking to a Japanese person, who looked very confused.  Kaoru said to me “we are going to have to help these people now” – thinking maybe they were friends of the guy we helped earlier.  They were trying to find the hotel they were staying at, but hadn’t checked in yet.  We pointed them in the right direction and then went to the train station ourselves.

We caught the two trains we did last Saturday after I arrived, and Mio picked us up from the train station.  We went back to her house for a drink, and then caught a taxi to dinner.  Yoichi and Arisa were already there waiting for us.  This was a “deep fried” night – similar to what we had in Kyoto with Mum and Dad, and Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen last April, except it was cooked for us rather than us having to do it.  There was a collection of sauces, and every few minutes a new skewer, cooked and ready to go, was put on a plate.  We dipped it in a sauce, ate it, and put the empty skewer in a holder.  How easy was that????

After dinner we came back to Mio’s, had a drink and had a relaxing bath before going to bed, ready for tomorrow’s adventure…

OK, who’s idea was this?  The alarm was going off at 2.20.  IN THE MORNING!  We had received a call yesterday that we couldn’t go out on the firefly squid watching boat, as it had broken down.  This was the reason we came to this area.  But the museum was still going to open for us, but they still wanted us there early in the morning.  We didn’t know what we were in for, so wore some semi-warm clothes and brought a back pack with some more just in case.  It took us about 10 minutes to get to the museum.

We had an introduction to the firefly squids – their history, lifespan, ….I don’t know what else – I didn’t understand a word of it!  Then we went upstairs and saw a video, which was followed by a demonstration of what it is like when the nets are pulled in.  At the front of the room there was a small pool with a net, and a number of firefly squid in it.  A few of us grabbed a corner of the net, and with the lights out, on the count of three, we all pulled the net up.  Instantly the squid illuminated!  It was amazing to see!  Over time the illumination faded, but another pull of the net and up they lit again!

We went downstairs to an open pool which had a number of these firefly squid in it, and we were able to pick them up.  When Kaoru pulled one out of the water, it squirted a stream of water at her.  Another one gave her a little nip.  Some of these would lite up, even though it wasn’t dark in the room.  It was really quite pretty.  Then we did something that can only be done in Japan.  After seeing how cute these things are, we went to the front room and were served half a dozen, steamed and ready to eat!  Having eaten a number of them last night, I knew what to expect – however these were different.  The eyes were quite hard, but the guts were just as squishy when you bit in to the squid (I had to put that detail on for you squirmish readers!)

We went outside as a group and watched a boat come in from collecting firefly squid.  We then walked to the docks, and saw them unloading from the boat, sorting the squid from the other fish, washing them down and bucketing them for sale.  It was quite a lengthy process.  Eventually we got back to the museum’s front room – it was nearly 5.00, and the tour had started at 3.  We started walking back to the hotel, via a convenience store to get some breakfast.

On our way back we were deciding whether to keep going for the day, or have a bit of sleep first.  Sleep won in the end, so when we got back we crawled back in to bed for an hour or so.  It was 8.00 by the time we woke up, had a shower and were ready to get going again.  Our original plan was a brief stop in Toyama and then go to Nagano.  But when Kaoru woke up she thought further and we decided we would just spend the day in Toyama, and deal wtih Nagano another time.  We caught an 8.55 train to Toyama which was only a few stops away.

We put our backpacks in a locker which made the day much easier.  On the way to the lockers we saw a display of glass blowing, and could see a child doing it – so thought that could be an interesting activity for the day.  Then we went to the tourist information centre to help us plan our days activities.

First thing was the glass blowing.  We caught a bus about 30 minutes out of town, and had a 15 minute walk (luckily without our bags as it was quite warm) before finding the place.  We filled in some paperwork and then were taken to step 1 – picking the design and colours.  To do this we had to look at a number of samples, and draw a picture.  Not easy for somebody with the artistic talents I have!  Then it was in to the main room.

You could feel the heat as soon as you walked in to this massive room.  Very high ceilings, obviously to help keep it cooler down lower where the work is done.  They gave a safety brief (in Japanese, with Kaoru translating) and then Kaoru made her glass.  She stopped at various parts to explain what needed to be done, in preparation for when I had to do my one.  It started with pre-heating the blowing rod, then getting some glass on it, turning, rolling the pattern on, blowing, turning, blowing, stretching….

After Kaoru’s was in the kiln, it was my turn.  It was a very enjoyable activity.  It takes a while to set, so we couldn’t take them home with us (which was a good thing, as we didn’t want to carry them for the rest of the day).  They will post it out to Nishikasai in a week, but we will have left Japan by then, so we asked if it can be done sooner.  They said that’s OK.

We walked back to the bus stop and caught a bus back in to the city.  We got off somewhere different and started walking towards a black ramen noodle restaurant we had seen on the map.  This area is famous for black ramen – basically it’s very peppery and salty.  On the way we talked ourselves out of it though, and preferred the idea of some sushi!  So we found a nice little sushi restaurant which was empty, and had a seat.

The owner / sushi master was very friendly.  He and Kaoru talked about Tetsuya – he had been asked to go to Australia as a chef several years ago but decided he preferred the hills in the area he lived in.  After we had eaten he pulled out a bottle of sake and poured us both a drink.  It’s hard to describe the difference but it was unlike any other sake I had tried previously.  It had a “fizziness” to it (but not fizzy).

After paying we continued our walk around Toyama.  We went to a medicine making factory.  On the information guide it said you can try to make your own medicine, so thought it would be another fun activity.  After we had looked around, a bus turned up with a dozen old ladies – they had obviously planned a tour.  So we watched the master give them a brief on the equipment and how the pills were made.  In the end we were not given the opportunity to try ourselves.

We walked around Toyama some more, and made our way to the government building.  It was about 70m high, so gave us a great view of the city and the surrounding mountains.  Unfortunately it wasn’t like the tower in Shinjuku – there was no cafe at the top.  So as much as we would have loved to sit down and have a hot chocolate and enjoy the view, we made our way back to the station.

The next Shinkansen was 3.11.  So we got our tickets, grabbed our bags from the locker, bought a bottle of sake and went to the platform.  We were on the new E7 Kagayaki Shinkansen – the fastest in Japan.  I clocked it at 260km/hr using my speedo app on my phone!  We got to Tokyo about 5.30, and back to Nishikasai a bit after 6.00.  Okasan and Ottosan had already left for Nasu so we had the place to ourselves.  It was great to be home again!  We took socks and shoes off and had a beer to unwind.  Then it was out to Mos Burger for dinner, and Mister Donut for dessert, and back home for unpacking, a nice bath, watch some TV and off to bed.

Kaoru woke up early this morning and went for a massage in the massage chair, and a bath. She came back to the room about 7, just as I was waking up. I had a shower and we went down for breakfast.

Breakfast was another buffet of all we could eat and more. I was able to have tamago kake gohan, as well as serve my own tofu through a tube similar to string cheese, and also reheat my own fish.

We went back to our room and packed our bags, in time to check out and catch the 9.00 transfer. We caught the train from Himi, made our 3 minute train change at takaoke and arrived at Namerikawa, where we were spending the night. Our hotel was next to the train station so we dropped our bags off and then went back to start the days activities.

We had about 10 minutes before or train was arriving and Kaoru had a question for the station attendant before we left. There were two people in front of us but it may as well have been 50 for how slow they were. She asked which platform the train would come on, just as it arrived… And we had no chance of getting to it. So we slowly made our way as the next one was about 20 minutes away.

Eventually a train came and we got on. There was nobody manning the platform and we worked out how to get a ticket on the train. About 30 seconds after we started moving I asked Kaoru if we were going the right way. The one platform did both directions! As we pulled in to the next station we could see what we were pretty sure was our train sitting there-the time was right. But it pulled out before our doors opened. So we were pretty annoyed.

The next train was about 45 minutes away so after some cursing we decided to try to find somewhere to get a hot chocolate. We walked for about 10 minutes without even a hint, but then saw a crepe shop. So we went there and Kaoru had a macha ice cream one, and I had pineapple and ice cream. We then made our way back to the train station, determined to get this one!

After about a 10 minute wait the train we needed arrived and we were on our way…albeit 2 hours behind. But we didn’t let that deter us. We were on a mission. We got off the train at Unazuki station and were sure we were at the wrong place. It was a beautiful village set in the hills but could it really have what we were looking for? Well, it didn’t take long to find a sign pointing us the right way…And we found what we were looking for.

In here we had lunch, and a tasting paddle of beer. The meal was a buffet, and we didn’t *need* a lot, but we got our money’s worth! The beer curry was what we really wanted to taste for the meal, which was quite nice. But the interesting part which got us to travel for an hour to taste was the beer flavored soft serve! Unfortunately this wasn’t included in the buffet so we had to buy it as we left. I couldn’t really taste it at first but Kaoru did right from the start.

We made our way back to the train station and continued on to Kurobe,  where we caught a train through the Kurobe gorge. The key thing here is how close it is to where we were a couple of nights ago. Just coming at it from another side. The round trip was about 90 minutes, and we were both quite tired, but as we had seen some of the bridges and scenery of where the train went, we had to do it. The journey was very picturesque  and enjoyable. It was just what we needed to relax for a while. We saw the winter access tunnel which for the most part ran alongside the train track. It’s hard to believe that when the snow is heavy people will walk through that. The train was originally for getting workers up the mountain but has become more public in recent times due to the beauty of the area.

At the bottom we killed some time and caught the next train back to Namerikawa and checked in. It was after 6.00. We got to our room and had a beautiful view as the sun was just about to set behind the mountains across the bay. Kaoru put a load of washing on while i got some work done. Then we went out for dinner. The recommendation from the hotel was a place owned by a relative of somebody who works at the hotel. But Kaoru had said she wanted sushi in this area as it was famous for it so i overruled the call.

It was only about 10 minute walk to find this small sushi bar with a couple in one corner and another guest at the other side. We sat at the bar and were asked for a drink order.  I felt like a sake but there were so many to choose from.  The person sitting by himself suggested one, so I thought why not?  So for the rest of the night the other people wanted to know more about us, but didn’t speak any English.  So Kaoru chatted to them, and I ate some amazing sushi!  It started with the firefly squid, which are local to this area, and the reason we had come.  These ones were cooked though, and served with some miso paste.  Then we had more served raw, and then the sushi master just kept serving us sushi until we asked him to stop.  The food was amazing, and apart from the guy smoking, it was an extremely enjoyable night.  Kaoru was enjoying chatting to locals and learning a bit about the area in the process.  When we came to paying the bill, the owner gave us a mug with the places name written on it to take home!  And it was considerably cheaper than Kaoru was expecting it to be, which was good.

We got back to the hotel not long after 9.00, and the dryer was still in use.  Whilst Kaoru had done a load of washing, the dryer wasn’t free.  We had seen a laundromat up the road on our walk to dinner, so we took the washing there to dry it, and then went home, set the alarm and went to bed.

What is it with Japanese and really early mornings? We were awoken by the “time to wake up” song for the village at about 6.00. The night itself was fairly sleepless – the mattress was hard and the pillow was just a sandbag! I managed to doze for a little bit, and then got up, and we had breakfast. This was your typical Japanese breakfast, but with something I hadn’t tried before – tamago kake gohan. Basically crack a raw egg, mix in some soy sauce, and pour over rice. Really nice!

We checked out and walked around the village. It was beautiful – just 12 “authentic” buildings. From a 10 minute stroll up the mountain we got some fantastic views. Then it was back in to town to make paper. We went to the paper making mill factory and the guy walked us through the process. First of all we made a sheet, then were able to decorate it, before the guy made a top sheet (very thin) to go on top. This was then dried and voila! We had paper!

We went back to our hut to collect our bags. Not long later our taxi arrived to take us to the oldest of these huts – > 300 years old. It was about a 20 minute drive away. We paid to get in, and they had just started a show so we sat down and enjoyed the majority of it, before having a walk around the hut. It was 3 stories and had lots of old equipment on display. We had some “medicinal” tea and then strolled across the bridge and up the hill to the jail cell.

We wandered around for a little bit before our bus came, which took us to another old village. This was similar to the one we stayed at last night, but even smaller. We had ~1 hour before the next bus, and were getting hungry, so we walked through the village and had some noodles for lunch. On the way back through the village we stopped for some photos, and then bought a soft serve ice cream for the walk up the hill to the highway. We waited about 5 minutes for our bus to arrive.

It was then about an hour bus trip back to Takaoka, and we had 90 minutes to kill. So we walked up to Kanaya-machi – an old style part of town. It was ~20 minutes at a brisk pace. We were able to leave our bags in a locker at the train station (500 yen) which made it easier, but it was still quite hot, so I enjoyed a cold drink of water for the walk. Once we were there we walked down the street, which had a market on for the day! So there were stalls on both sides of the street with the usual trinkets. We bought some food and made our way back to the train station. We got side tracked at a couple of shops so by the end we were running short of time for our train! A quick toilet stop, grab our bags from the locker, buy our train tickets, and we had about 2 minutes to spare.

It was about a 30 minute train trip to Himi, heading North up the peninsula a bit. The water was to our right and looked so different compared to the mountains we had been walking through the last couple of days. At the train station we had a transfer to our hotel. It took about 15 minutes past the fish market and the sake brewery we were expecting to go to (which was the reason we came to this town – unfortunately they decided not to have tours, but only told Kaoru last week). We were taken up to our room on the top (5th) floor, and looked out East over the bay. It was a beautiful view! So I bought a beer and a drink for Kaoru and we enjoyed that looking out over the water and discussing our plans for the rest of the day.

Feeling quite sore, we decided to start by going downstairs to the free massage chairs. This was just what we needed after the walking with our heavy backpacks! Luxury! Then we sat in the lounge and had a cup of tea, looking out over the bay again.

At 6.20 it was time for a bath before dinner.  There was a beautiful view over the ocean from the 3rd story bathroom, but the water was just way too hot.  And trying to shave using the disposable razor provided just drew lots of blood.  Still, it was nice to relax, even if just for a short time.  However when you’re on the clock, it’s hard to really appreciate where you are.

We made it to dinner about 7.00.  We were quite relaxed and warm, and ready to start our “mini” sized meal.  We had no idea what we were in store for…

I ordered a sake tasting platter – 3 different sake’s (100ml glasses) for 1,500 yen.  One of them was from the brewery we were hoping to go to tomorrow.  It was particularly nice – I don’t know what stood out about it though.  I think it had a bit of a fizziness to it – not necessarily the right word to describe it, but that’s the only thing I could put it down to.  But the food….oh my god.  It just kept coming, and coming, and coming.  And every dish was as good as the last.  You can imagine what the seafood would be like in a fishing village.  The sashima was great, even for Japanese standards.  We had shabu shabu squid, that swelled up while being cooked (for no more than 60 seconds).  The seaweed changed from a dull brown to a glowing green as it heated.  I can’t even remember most of what we had as I just kept getting fuller and fuller, but couldn’t stop eating.

*finally* they brought out the rice, and I knew we had reached the end.  I left half of this, but I was wrong – there was still dessert to come!  Luckily that went down easily – some jelly with a dob of creme on top.

It was an effort just to stand up after this meal.  Finally we made it back to our room, and were delighted that they had come in and cleared our table, to make our beds up.  We sat out on balcony for a while and planned what we were going to do tomorrow given a few changes in our schedule…enjoying the night view of the bay.

*Somebody* had a great idea to watch the sunrise this morning. So a wake-up call confirming the tour was on happened about 3.55. Scared the crap out of me! We knew it was going to be cold, but we were also quite hot in the room – so we put a few layers on, and then our top few layers in a backpack, and made our way to reception.

There would have been ~100 people doing the tour. We caught the electric bus back to the previous stop from yesterday, and it was starting to get cooler. I was expecting them to have the heaters on to keep everybody warm, which would have been stupid because of the amount of clothes we were all wearing, and we didn’t want to have to take them off. Luckily they took the logical approach and had it fairly cool so we could be rugged up. Nonetheless my driza-bone and gloves didn’t go on until we were walking outside at the lookout.

It was quite light outside already; but the sky was clearly red in one direction. We took a few photos, and weren’t shivering, which was good as we had brought quite a lot of clothes on this trip and wanted to justify them all coming! Eventually the sun started to rise above the mountain. It was a magical sunrise – words can’t describe the mountains, half covered in snow, as the sun broke through.

After about 15 minutes we caught a bus back to the hotel – it was now about 5.30, and we thought we’d go outside to see the sunrise from where we were staying! You could see the sun reflecting on the peaks of the mountains opposite but it hadn’t risen enough for us to see it yet. We gave up on this one and went back inside.

After a cup of shitake mushroom and pepper tea (which tasted more like soup), we waited until 6.45 when breakfast started. We had a bit of everything – it was a full buffet so we had our choice of lots of food, and we indulged in all we could!

After breakfast we were both feeling pretty tired, so decided to get a little bit of sleep. After an hour or so, we woke up, showered, packed our bags and checked out. It was just before 10.00, and our tour was scheduled to leave at 11.45, so we went for a walk around the “lake”, which was supposed to be about a 1 hour stroll. Because the sun was up we knew it would be warmer, so we left our bags at reception, and just had T-shirt and jumper on (Kaoru had a couple extra layers). Again, we were treated to sensational mountain views as we walked up and down the snow. We saw a couple of raichou birds – an almost extinct species that are very old. Apparently it was very lucky for us to see them.

Near the end of our walk we went to a “cultural building”. Because we had seen these birds we had to fill it in a register, and were given stickers. However the building was just too hot. I was already down to just my T-shirt with my jumper around my waist but I would have still been hot in shorts! So we made our way back to the hotel and went to the 5th floor lounge to wait out the next 40 minutes or so, with a hot chocolate.

It was finally time to go, so we found our tour guide from yesterday, and we boarded our bus. This drove us through the snow wall, and the winding roads, for about an hour. Then we boarded a cable car further down the mountain, and said goodbye to our tour group. They were going back to Tokyo directly, but we had other plans. So in 8 minutes we boarded a train, bound for Toyama Station.

This was quite an interesting trip. Kaoru kept making jokes comparing the stations to Yarraville station, because they were unmanned. However they were old shelters really (albeit with larger waiting areas).

At Toyama we caught a train to Takaoka station. There we had a snack and a drink, before catching a 4.00 World Heritage Bus to Gokayama. This was about a 1 hour trip. After being on low ground for a while, we were expecting to have a warm night. But no, the last 20 minutes of driving were steadily going up-hill, and soon enough we were driving through scattered snow again. The bus driver pulled over and told us where to get off the bus, and we walked about 20 minutes in to town.

Wow. What an amazing town! I can see why it’s world heritage listed. Very old style houses, with grass roofs, all with a perfect 60 degree angle for maximum strength given the weight of snow they must sustain. From the cartoon map Kaoru had printed out, we managed to find our building without too much trouble (there are 12 buildings in the village – so yeah, it was never going to be *that* hard!).

After being taken to our Tatami room and putting our bags down, we went to the “family room” and had some green tea and filled in a registration form. We met another guest who was Japanese, but currently living and working in Hungary – he was just back travelling through Japan for a bit. Then another couple came out of their room, from USA. They had arrived yesterday and had enjoyed a restful day today.

Before dinner we were told we were getting a room upgrade! Another couple who were supposed to come had cancelled. So our new room was about twice the size! Score!!!!

Dinner was, as always, a fantastic feast. Our host told us stories, mostly of which he probably tells every night. The couple from the USA said that the previous night, the other guests were a couple of Frenchmen and a Chinese, so communication was very limited. They were wrapped at having a translator tonight explaining all the details!

After dinner we watched a short movie about the history of the village. The American couple told us how they had ~7 hours travel time tomorrow to get to Kyoto, so Kaoru, the other Japanese boy and the owner talked about all the various options they had, and I think in the end, a better option was found. Then after a hot bath, it was time for an early night. I could feel the bottom of my legs were very swollen – not sure if this was due to the walking, the altitude or the weather. I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight! About 9.00 we could hear music playing – it was like the “it’s time for bed” song for the village.

I woke up fairly early this morning (okay, after Kaoru and her parents but it’s pretty hard to beat them!).  I got dressed, finalised packing and wend downstairs for a quick breakfast, and we were out the door by 7.40.  Kaoru had decided that we would have trouble getting on crowded trains with our backpacks, and that we would be better off getting a taxi to Tokyo station; so we started walking to Nishikasai station, and found a taxi pretty quickly.

It cost just over 3,000 yen, and we had a good run – very little traffic.  Which was surprising.  We got to the station with 7 minutes to spare.  We found our tour director (not Kaoru this time!!!) and found we were the youngest in the group.  This is something getting rarer and rarer for me these days, so it’s quite nice for a change!  At 8.30 we walked in our group to a quiet area, and were given a briefing, before catching a 9.04 Shinkansen.  While waiting for our train to arrive, we saw a double decker Shinkansen, which I had never seen before.

We got off the train about 10:45, where we changed for a bus.  It was still quite warm, which was a surprise, as we were definately getting up in the hills.  A lot of the trip here was through tunnels.  The bus took about 2 hours, and the last hour we had a beautiful view of snow capped mountains, and there was snow on the side of the road.  Eventually we reached the end of the line.

About 15 minutes later we caught an electric (trolley) bus to our next stop, where we got a cable car, ropeway, and another trolley bus, and *finally* made it to Tateyama Hotel about 3.00.  We had about 15 – 30 minutes at each stop to look around – this included crossing a dam, and several observation towers.

After a briefing (which I didn’t catch a word of), we were given our room key and finally took a load off.  But time-was-a-passing….so we went outside for a bit of a walk around the area in the snow and took some photos.  At 5.00 we met up with everybody else from the hotel, as the ‘day trippers’ had all left, and were able to walk through the snow wall by ourselves.  This was amazing!  It was ~19 foot high in places – vertical.  The sun was out and I was in a T-shirt, with lots of warm gear in my backpack just in case.

We had about a 45 minute round trip through the snow wall.  Then it was time for dinner.  We were taken in to the restaurant and enjoyed a fine meal of….well, you know Japanese food!  Lots of tasty things!  The newest for me was the Firefly Squid – whole.  Very interesting taste.

After dinner we had a bath to warm up, and then decided to go outside and check out the stars – there was a group viewing but we decided to go by ourselves as I wouldn’t have understood them anyway!  The snow covered mountains lite up by the half full moon were beautiful, but it was very bright – we even had shadows as we walked!  So the stars weren’t as impressive as we were hoping, but the view made up for it.  This was also a test of whether we had brought enough warm clothes.  Tomorrow morning would be even colder so we needed to find out how we were going.  I think we’ll be OK.

A drink up on the 5th floor lounge wrapped up the evening.  We were both very tired – while we hadn’t done a lot (other than sitting and changing modes of transportation), it had been a long day.

I didn’t wake up until about 9.00. So a well needed sleep. I was feeling a bit better but still a little groggy. I went downstairs and had a Japanese style breakfast of fish and rice and then went back to bed.

It was able 2.00 next time i woke up and after a shower to clear the cobwebs i was ready to take on the world. I had hiyashi chuka noodles which is a summer specialty as they are served cold. Mio and Arisa joined us for a walk around their neighborhood which we had never done before. Then Kaoru and i packed our bags and Mio took us to the train station.

We went to Togo shrine where we got married just over 12 months ago. We were given ofuda when we were married – some cards with a happy prayer on them. We needed to return these and a priest will burn them.

We then walked to Meiji Shrine, where we always go as it was the first place Kaoru took me the day we met. After a prayer we made our way back to the station and went to Nishikasai,  and found an okonomiyaki restaurant for dinner. They had some very different waysof serving than i was used to-same concept but just looked different.

Then it was back home for a couple of beers, a nice bath and then pack bags for our trip.

Flying in style. I’m coming to Japan on jetstar business class this time. Kaoru came a week ago and now I’m coming to start my holiday.

The plane took off on time from melbourne…pushed back about 1150pm Friday night. The usual routine-i left my car at Brett’s and he drove me to the airport.

Immigration was empty and my bag came off very quickly. So i found Kaoru waiting for me at 927 and we bought tickets and rushed to catch a 935 bus to Kasai and then walked to Kaoru’s parents house in Nishikasai. We had some tea and then went for lunch-soba restaurant.

I was feeling a bit sick. Burning the candle at both ends while Kaoru was away had given me a bit of a cold. So after lunch and browsing through a few hundred of Kaoru’s old photographs i had a little nap. Then we packed an overnight bag and left for Mio’s house about 4.00.

It took a couple of trains…but how good was it to be using a system that works again! The second train was very crowded but somehow we managed to get more people on. Mio picked us up from the station and took us to her house. Kozue and Kenichi and their kids were already there. So after some hello’s we started eating…

Mio knew how much i loved sushi so had organized a couple of large platters to be delivered. Because i was unwell it was a quieter night than normal. A couple of beers, some sake and some topaque that i brought from Australia was all i had. I excused myself early and had a bath for a good 5 minutes and then was in bed by 9.00.