Refuge of a Maladjusted Moose

This week (or at least the last 5 days) has been a huge public holiday here in Japan. This means that the roads are packed, the tourist resorts are teeming, and the hotels are all fully booked. However we opted to avoid these common pit falls by doing small day trips with friends. Overall it has worked out quite well. What follows is a brief run down of the highlights.

On Saturday we went off to Ine with some friends/ my students. Ine is a seaside town nearby where we live. It is in a well protected bay so is filled with very calm waters. It has a history of Whale fishery and many of the houses are old and show the traces of this past. The entire area is considered protected because of this, so whilst many of the old buildings can appear a bit run down and the roads are narrow and winding, it does lend the place a kind of charm.


On Sunday evening we went off to a local festival, filled with traditional floats. The floats contained Children with flutes and drums, so it was kinda noisy. But there was a pretty lively atmosphere in general so it was okay most of the time. We followed the floats for a bit watching them navigate the streets and back alleys of the town. Then headed home. See pictures for more details (taken before it got too dark).


Yesterday (Tuesday) we headed off to Amino with more friends/ Loks students. Again its a seaside town fairly close by to Yosano. When there we visited a nice beach which was REALLY clean, and had sand that made a sort of musical noise if you played it right. I think this was down to the coarse and dry nature of the sand (special to that area I suppose). We then went somewhere for some nice lunch and were fed even more after a trip to the friends parents. The insisted on getting us to try all the seasonal bamboo shoots and seaweed (it was nice for the most part). We returned home with a bucket of bamboo shoots and more seaweed than we know what to do with.


Finally this evening we are seeing more friends/ students of ours and going out for some cheep Sushi. The local conveyor belt sushi place recently dropped there prices to 94¥ a plate. Such a deal is too good to miss.