Of Sightseeing and Colds

So this week Hikari's friend Momoko came to stay with us for a few days.

Tuesday was spent tiding up Maltoen, cleaning the windows and preparing the futon. It was a pretty busy day, though all in all it was good fun.

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On Wednesday Hikari and I headed into Yamaguchi city nice and early. We headed to the Library first to return some books which were, in my case, rather overdue and I was pleased to find out they don't have library fines here \(^o^)/ .
Afterwards we headed to the hairdressers for a trim, the place we went to is really nice and best of all, affordable. I really do miss my long hair sometimes, if only because I have to keep getting my short hair cut. Still, I looked super cute with my nice short (and straightened!) hair.

We weren't meant to be picking Momoko up until 12 so we decided to kill time at the 'Manga Shop', it's basically this huge secondhand manga/anime shop and I can tell you now it is incredible. It's just unfortunate I can't read Japanese, still I enjoy looking at all the weeb stuff there, oh if only I didn't have a weight limit when I go home. Anyway, while Hikari read manga I decided to entertain myself in the arcade where I won the most adorable Ariel figurine.

Right, so we left the Manga shop and were getting ready to go to the station when Momoko phoned to tell us that she had missed the stop, we did some more time killing in the shape of visiting a book store and laughing about how I can't read and then visiting various convenience stores.

We met Bingo-san outside the train station just before we met Momoko at about half 2 and we all headed to the 5 story Pagoda in Yamaguchi city. I've been there before, in my first week of arriving in Yamaguchi but oh my it had changed. The Autumn leaves made it look 10x more beautiful.

 It's pretty astonishing huh?
There's also this really cool bit near the pagoda and if you stand in a certain spot and clap it makes a weird sort of squeaky echo. I thought it was amazing.

Afterwards Bingo-san took us to this really cool temple, we were given an explination about it but unfortunately I didn't really understand. All I got was that it was a pretty old temple, but wow was it gorgeous.

I didn't get many pictures of the inside but they did have this beautiful stained glass window. I think it's the first I've seen in Japan so far which is a little strange for me considering that nearly all the churches and cathedrals in the UK have stained glass. We also got to try out the 250 year old drum that was inside which was pretty cool.
Outside when I was putting my shoes back on I was very excited to spot this little guy

He was right next to me so I was able to get a really clear shot. Lucky~

After we left Yamaguchi city we headed to Hikari's parents house and her father took us up to the Akiyoshi Plateau, we didn't walk very far though because it was quite cold. It looked so beautiful though, I was really angry that my phone died so I couldn't get any photo's. Luckily Hikari got some.

Back at Maltoen we made dinner on the little stove outside. It was really good fun, although the meat on the barbecue was rather chewy.

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Thursday was another busy day of sightseeing. Hikari's father came round in the morning to see us and offered to drive us to where we were going, but first we all went for a walk up to the Benten pond to get some photo's and look at the water.

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It was a nice drive and I was able to get some pictures out the window, however, I admit I spent a lot of time dozing, I had managed to come down with a cold and while it wasn't too bad that morning I was really tired.

The first place we went to was the Motonosumi-Inari Jinjya Shrine. There's a little description on the picture below.
It was really beautiful and the view from where were was astounding.

We all had a go at throwing our coins into the donation box, I was the last to get mine in and was at it for a good 15 mins. In fact, I was so focused on getting the coin into the box I completely forgot to make a wish! Still, it was good fun.

The next stop we made was on a road overlooking the sea.

Once again, the view was incredible. We took a few photos and off we went over that bridge and onto our next stop which was here:

It's a lighthouse. We didn't go up, again we just took a few photo's before moving on.

Where we moved onto though was possibly the best part of the day though. It was a hotel I think, but there was a restaurant and a hot spring there. We had lunch in the restaurant but I'll admit by this point my cold had moved onto 'brain mush running out my nose' so I didn't really taste much which was a shame. Still, I tired sea urchin for the first time!

After lunch we headed to the hot springs. They were absolutely amazing. They had two types of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, both of which were expensive and they also had something called 'peeling gel'. I wasn't really sure what it was but I tried it and essentially what it does is peel off your dead skin (ew, I know) still it leaves your skin super soft afterwards (it also left my 'chicken skin' looking better too). After washing up we went to get into the baths and to my amazement there was one outside too! It was on a little balcony overlooking the sea with a glass railing, rather new to me standing starkers before getting into the bath but still, it was increadible. I obviously couldn't get a picture but I took this one out the window of the changing room:

After getting out the bath Momoko and I got ourselves and Ice cream while Hikari went for some iced coffee.

When we had all met up again we bundled into the car and set off back to Maltoen. At this point I really did fall asleep in the car, my cold had gotten worse a lot quicker than I had expected and when we got back I pretty much went to bed straight away, but not before opening the parcels from my Mum that had arrived that day.

I got up again a couple of times to be social and have a little bit to eat before again heading back to bed. The others seemed to have a good time though having a little pre-irori camp fire indoors.

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On Friday I still felt pretty rubbish and ended up staying in bed until quite late. I did get up and try to become a semi-functional human being though and helped to tidy up the house.

I also went with Hikari and Bingo-san to a new city, however, we weren't there for very long.

Once again, I pretty much went straight to bed once I got back home.
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On Saturday the Ballerina girl came again, we sat and chatted about good websites to use to help with learning English, and also some apps to help me with my Japanese.

I also taught them the phrase 'Time flies when you're having fun' as so far every week she's been we certainly do seem to find that to be the case!


All in all it's been a really great week. Well... except for that stinking cold! Luckily I feel a lot better today, I just need to shake my cough and I'll be back to normal!

Once again, here are some of my other favourite pictures I took this week:

The first (almost) 3 months.

So when I first found out I was going to Japan I said to myself, "I'll write a blog entry each week to summarise everything I've done."
.... Well obviously I didn't do that. But hey, better late than never right? I don't even write in my journal everyday like I wanted to but I at least try to get the important things in.

Anyway, lets get on with this blog thing.

The first 10 days of my being in Japan were spent in Tokyo. I stayed with a host family while I was there, they were absolutely lovely and they really did make me feel welcome.

The first day I arrived was after an 11.5 hour flight from Heathrow. It was pretty early Japan time but at home it was nearing 11pm. I'll tell you now, the first day was busy and I was horrifically tired. I think all in all by the time I went to bed I had been awake for around 26 hours. It was rough and I might have cried a little.

The next 9 days were great though. After day one there wasn't much chance of me finding anything else too tough. Every day was very full though, we had Japanese language lessons, lessons about culture, briefs and debriefs and also some sightseeing in between.

I arrived at my project in Yamaguchi on the 12th of September.

On the first day we started off easy with some tomato picking and I received a run down on my duties before we went to Hikari-san's home for dinner. Her family were very kind to me and told me straight off that their home was now also my home. At 8 o'clock they went to pray to their God and I was asked to join. I'll tell you, I'd been to church more that week than in the past 5 years!

Okay so like, I had little-to-no knowledge of Japanese before I arrived here, just some basic words and I knew some of the characters, however, after the two months I find myself being able to understand some of the things that people say to me (even if I can’t form a reply.) My hosts have been teaching me some of the Yamaguchi dialect too which has been very fun.

I’ve really enjoyed my time here so far, even if there have been a few moments where I’ve felt quite homesick, weirdly I find it’s very small things that make me miss home; things like seeing my hosts family interacting together- which makes me miss my own or seeing a video or photo of my friends from home. However, it’s been easily cured by a chat with my mum and some self-motivation in the form of stern conversations with the mirror.

I’ve also noticed some differences between here and home, sometimes there’s been a little bit of culture clash in the form of misunderstandings (but not very often thankfully). I think for me the biggest shock has been the lack of central heating, it might be colder back in Scotland but we have radiators to keep us warm, luckily I brought a lot of jumpers with me!
…Okay so that’s a little bit of a lie, I actually think the weirdest thing for me was when we went to the Fukuoka prefecture and we ate whale. This was quite a big shock as whale fishing is banned in Europe, it did actually taste quite nice though.

I think my favourite thing in Japan so far (apart from going to Harajuku street) was getting to try on a Kimono. Hikari-san’s mother is training to be a Kimono teacher so the two of us were able to try them on before we went around the Kyoto exhibition in Yamaguchi City. I’ve been invited to lots of things these past couple of months such as a Scrabble club, a day out to the Fukuoka prefecture with the village and a trip to some of the local schools with a group of Indonesian students that came to stay with us.

We also held a Halloween event at the share house where we played some traditional games and carved a pumpkin together which was a lot of fun.

And here are some more of my favourite pictures because I feel like showing them off. I'm tired and I'll (possibly) add descriptions or whatever another day.