Moonlighter
15-07-2008, 09:54 PM
Hi all
I was inspired by Henno's excellent posts to share a bit of the story of our Japan trip in Feb 2007, so here goes!
The brief background is that in 1989 we hosted a young Japanese student, who was then 17, at our home for a few weeks whilst she studied English and learnt about Australia. We became great friends and she came back 5 times in the following 18 years to visit us - sometimes by herself, other times she brought friends or family.
Then late in 2006 we got an e-mail from Yukimi that her boyfriend had proposed and she was getting married, and asked would we like to come to her wedding in Japan. My wife Rhonda could barely contain herself and before we knew it flights booked and we are on the way to Nagoya in central Japan.
We had 2 weeks there with the wedding about half-way through, held on a small Island Miyajima that's just off the coast from Hiroshima. We were hosted by Yukimi and her parents and by her new husband's family down at Kobe - they are great hosts and welcomed us like old friends. As Henno said visiting Japan this way where you stay with and are looked after by locals is just a brilliant way to see a country.
Whilst Rhonda wanted to look at pottery, historical places etc, I had always wanted to see the Tokyo fish markets, especially after seeing Starlos reports all those years ago on Rexy's show.
So one morning early we jumped on the Shinkansen (that's the Bullet train to us westerners) and went up to Tokyo - about the same distance from Nagoya as Rockhampton is from Brisbane. Trip took around 2 hrs! At 300kph its like flying, only smoother. Thank God Yukimi acted as tour guide for us otherwise we'd still be somewhere down in the Tokyo subway!
Here's a few photos to whet your appetites. Some huge frozen tuna, some unknown species, lots of slimies (good chewin', those slimies!).
Like Henno I ate sushimi style seafood of just about every description, and quite a few things that I still am not sure what they were, but once you get past the "thought" they do actually taste great! I will post a few pictures of the seafood meals I was served as well if anyone's interested.
sum; 30887; 30888
30889; 30890
I was inspired by Henno's excellent posts to share a bit of the story of our Japan trip in Feb 2007, so here goes!
The brief background is that in 1989 we hosted a young Japanese student, who was then 17, at our home for a few weeks whilst she studied English and learnt about Australia. We became great friends and she came back 5 times in the following 18 years to visit us - sometimes by herself, other times she brought friends or family.
Then late in 2006 we got an e-mail from Yukimi that her boyfriend had proposed and she was getting married, and asked would we like to come to her wedding in Japan. My wife Rhonda could barely contain herself and before we knew it flights booked and we are on the way to Nagoya in central Japan.
We had 2 weeks there with the wedding about half-way through, held on a small Island Miyajima that's just off the coast from Hiroshima. We were hosted by Yukimi and her parents and by her new husband's family down at Kobe - they are great hosts and welcomed us like old friends. As Henno said visiting Japan this way where you stay with and are looked after by locals is just a brilliant way to see a country.
Whilst Rhonda wanted to look at pottery, historical places etc, I had always wanted to see the Tokyo fish markets, especially after seeing Starlos reports all those years ago on Rexy's show.
So one morning early we jumped on the Shinkansen (that's the Bullet train to us westerners) and went up to Tokyo - about the same distance from Nagoya as Rockhampton is from Brisbane. Trip took around 2 hrs! At 300kph its like flying, only smoother. Thank God Yukimi acted as tour guide for us otherwise we'd still be somewhere down in the Tokyo subway!
Here's a few photos to whet your appetites. Some huge frozen tuna, some unknown species, lots of slimies (good chewin', those slimies!).
Like Henno I ate sushimi style seafood of just about every description, and quite a few things that I still am not sure what they were, but once you get past the "thought" they do actually taste great! I will post a few pictures of the seafood meals I was served as well if anyone's interested.
sum; 30887; 30888
30889; 30890