Mt Shosha

Tina and I decided to take Mum and Dad to Mt Shosha which is where the movie, ‘The Last Samurai’ with Tom Cruise was filmed.

We hiked up the mountain and had to dodge and weave past all these scary spiders which had formed monstrous webs! None of us were keen on walking through those spider webs. This is one of the thousands of spiders that lived on the mountain.

When we reached the top, Mum and Dad wanted to ring the bell just to say they did it and made it to the top (without walking through a spider web!).


These statues represent babies who have died. It is very sad, but it is a good monument to remember them by.



Mum, Dad, Tina and I on the stairs of one of the temples at the top of Mt Shosha.


Tina and I at the exact place where ‘The Last Samurai’ was filmed. It was exciting to be in the same place that Tom Cruise had once been to film a famous movie!


This is called a jikido. Many years ago, a jikido was a place where monks would live, eat, sleep and study. It looked like a very peaceful place to be.

Kobe with the Folks

Mum and Dad had never been to Kobe before, so Shinya helped me to show them around the city. First we took them to Harbour Land. They enjoyed this as it had a great view of all the boats entering and departing the harbour.

We then went to China Town which was exciting for them to walk down as this was the first time they had been to a China Town in Japan. We ate a really nice sesame sweet and then we had a steamed bun which had meat and onion inside it. It was a cheap lunch, but probably close to being one of the most delicious lunches I have had!

After lunch, we went to Shinya’s mum’s coffee shop and had coffee and cake there. This is Mum, Dad and I with Shinya, Shinya’s Mum and Shinya’s sister.


We then met up with Lauren and her Mum, Jenny so that we could go to the top of Mt Rokko and see the best night view in the Kansai area. It was definitely the best because we were so high up the top of this mountain and we could see almost all the lights in Kobe and also in Osaka! It was amazing!

This is Kobe’s night view. Pretty spectacular, huh?


Lauren and I with both our parents.

Lauren’s Birthday

It was Lauren’s birthday just recently, so for her birthday she decided to go to an Izakaya. Makoto was nice enough to book it for us and it was a really cool restaurant because it had a pirate ship theme. To enter the restaurant, you have to walk down a staircase and it looks like you are walking into a cave. Then each table is surrounded by wooden bars like a jail cell and it had the coolest atmosphere.

This is a group shot of all the people who came to Lauren’s birthday:

Jenny (Lauren’s mum), Dad, Mum, Kyosuke, Makoto, Steve, Tina, Lauren, me and Taube.

This is Steve, Tina, Lauren and I all excited, but feeling full because we had just eaten a huge feast!


When we came home, Laure's Mum had organised a surprise birthday cake for Lauren. What is a birthday, if you don’t get to blow out candles on a cake? So Lauren made her birthday wish and she hopes it comes true!

Moon Viewing Festival

In Himeji, at the full moon, there was a Moon Viewing Festival.

It consisted of music and dancing and many talented musicians and performers put on an entertaining show for us to watch. I like the fact that most festivals in Japan are free and all you have to do is turn up and you get free entertainment based on traditional Japanese culture. They had koto players, taiko players (the taiko is a traditional Japanese drum), dancing, samarai performances, shamisen (Japanese guitars) and they were all dressed in traditional costumes too. My favourite part of the festival was when the skilled drummers came out to perform on the taiko. I was blown away by their energy and the rhythm of the drums. They were by far the most impressive to watch for me that night.


While watching the festivities, we had a really yummy picnic with lots of food that was bad for us! It tasted good though and that was the main thing. Lauren’s mum was visiting at the time so she made a nice pasta salad and the best curried eggs I had ever tasted! At least you can count on mum to provide some sort of nutrition!

Mum and Dad had also just come back from their trip to Europe so they got to sit and enjoy the festival too! This is a picture of Steve, Lauren, Lauren’s mum, Tina, Dad, Mum and me having a picnic and enjoying the festival.

Kanazawa

During the weekend, I went to a place on the northern coast of Honshu called Kanazawa.

It was a really beautiful town and I am so glad I got to see it. I went to a place called the Kenrokuen Gardens. It is one of the most famous gardens in Japan and it was so beautiful. I love Japanese gardens – especially really large ones that have all sorts of different types of plants and flowers! It was so green and lush and it just looked like paradise. You can see in the photos how beautiful it actually is. Just looking at the photos now makes me want to jump into them and relive that moment right now because it was so peaceful and beautiful.

These are some poisonous mushrooms that we saw on the ground. I liked the colour of them so I wanted to take a photo.


While we were sitting down enjoying the scenery by the lake, some large trout came up to say hello.

They opened their huge mouths and were looking at us, wanting to give them some food. I wish I had some bread so that I could have seen them for a bit longer because they looked so funny with their mouths open!

Kanazawa also has some ruins of samarai houses.

We went into the restored houses to have a look at how the samarai used to live. The houses were beautiful and they had tatami mats in every single room. The garden in the backyard was so amazing to look at with a little pond and many green traditional Japanese plants and flowers. It was beautiful.

This is the tea room where they used to participate in tea ceremonies which is a traditional ceremony common for Japanese people.


The tea room door was so small that I had to duck to get into the room! The reason why it is so small is because you are supposed to kneel on your knees as you enter the door.

We weren’t supposed to crawl through this section because it is a window, but it was fun!


This is traditional Japanese calligraphy called syuji.

Many Japanese people are good at syuji as they have to study it throughout their schooling career. I want to learn how to do it too, but I think it takes a long time to get used to being graceful with the strokes of the brush. I have tried it a few times, but I definitely need more practise!

For dinner one night, we went to an izakaya which is a traditional Japanese pub. We all shared some sashimi and it tasted delicious, but my stomach wasn’t feeling too good that night so I couldn’t eat that much.


The next day we went to the markets.

These are some getta that were on sale. I love this photo. I love the way they display them lined up all in a row. They are the coolest looking shoes, but they are so uncomfortable to wear!

We also made our way to a foot onsen which is a foot spa.

It was free to enter so we had a dip in the water. The temperature of the water was so hot, and it was also a pretty hot day which made my entire body warm up in seconds! When I took my feet out they were bright red! It felt relaxing though and I think it would be good to use in winter when it gets really cold.

Just near the foot onsen was a small festival where many primary school-aged students were participating in a taiko (Japanese drums) competition. It was so amazing to watch because all of the students had so much talent.


Close to Kanazawa is a beach that you can drive on because the sand is so hard.

So Shinya’s friend took us for a drive along the beach. It was a little scary in the beginning because he was going really fast and the sand was really bumpy, but then he slowed down after that and it was fun to look out the window and take pictures of the scenery.

So that was Kanazawa! I would like to go back there if I ever get a chance!

Scary Haircut

I got my haircut. I wanted a change so I thought I would do a drastic one and cut it really short and dye it brown. I’m not quite sure if I’m happy with it because I think it makes me look a bit feral, but there is nothing I can do about it now until it grows out. What do you think?

Just kidding! I didn’t really get my hair cut! It was a wig! It looks pretty real though, huh? I thought it was worth taking a photo just to see what I would look like with short, brown hair and now I know that I will NEVER get a haircut like that!!! Just as well it was only a wig!!! Hehe

Tokyo’s Night View

At night time, we went to see the view of the Tokyo lights from the Government building. It is a really tall building and you can get a magnificent view of the city. That night, the moon was bright and it looked spectacular from where we were standing. It was like glitter in the sky!