Saturday and Sunday - now with photos!

[deralte]

Like my new default icon? I've been making a lot more puns lately. I blame the lack of friends to make them and save me the trouble.

Saturday evening, we all ended up at the neaby fun centre for bowling and print club photos. The bowling was expensive (10 dollars a game...) but was pretty relaxing, not to mention you got your shoes from vending machines:D Afterwards, they gave us free tokens to gamble with and B. and I tried the taiko drumming game which I now have to figure out how to up the level on since I want to play the Naruto song *L*

We did print club photos afer that and they turned out fantastic. So if you don't mind seeing my co-workers, here they are;)


I love this photo:D (In case you've missed my personal icons, I'm the one in the brown tank top...)


Print club is far too addictive. I'm so glad I can convince myself not to spend 400 yen on them when I'm alone or else I'd be spending a lot of time making weird photo stickers of myself...

Sunday, we met up in the late morning to drive to Nagato. We ended up stopping near Ofuku onsen at this national park where they have a somen (cold noodle) place where you pick the noodles out of the cold, mountain water that's rushing down bamboo troughs. See.



We didn't actually eat there since the line was too long, but the walk up to the place was fantastic.





Afterwards, we headed on to Nagato. We ended up eating lunch at one of the many random restaurants run by little old ladies that are to be found in Japan. The food was good and we were talking and minding our own business etc. I asked the old lady for some more water and she comes and brings it back. I suspect nothing. Out of the blue, she reaches out and gropes my breast and calls me "Boing-chan". Yes, "Boing-chan". *pauses to allow you all to stop laughing* We're all in a state of shock and amazement. I mean, I expect my kindergarteners to grope me, not little old ladies... Then - then she comes back over and tries for another grab and repeating my new nickname (incidently, if any of you actually use this name I will provide you with a slow, painful death... one involving bamboo shoots...). She seemed almost offended when I told her "dame!" (stop it/no good!) Er, and before we left they told me I was very young and just kept staring at my breasts. *bewildered*

After that eventful lunch, we went to the Kazuki Yasuo museum. He's an artist and his art was pretty nice, but I was too tired to do more than look then go grab a lie down on the couches.


Otherwise known as the scariest scarecrows I've ever seen...

We then headed on towards Hagi which has a lovely historical look to it since it's an ancient castle town.



I went to explore the museum which was easy to do since there were two pamplets in English and lots of boring stuff about rocks and fish which I ignored in favour of history. What was cool was there was a display on the life of Shinsaku Tasugi who was a famous Ishin Shishi. (Those of you who have seen the Kenshin OVA1, or read the manga will remember him as the guy who drafted Kenshin into his army and who was always playing the shamisen.)


His actual shamisen:)

There was also a display on the Choushu Five (the five members of the clan who went to England for university and came back and revolutionized their country... literally), though it was kinda sparse. Afterwards we tried to make it to Katsura Koguro's old house but it was closed by the time we got there (and if any of the Kenshin fans on my friendslist don't recognize that name, shame on you).


Here's the outside at least.

We wandered around a bit since the town is lovely, and while there are even more famous Ishin Shishi houses and stuff around there (Hagi is where the Choushu were based after all) we didn't bother going to see it since it would all be closed. We stopped at a lovely little shop and tea house that was actually someone's home (I was more thrilled to be in such a traditional house than anything else). We ended up going for ice cream in a little shop, then headed off towards the castle ruins, with many stops to look at Hagi's famous pottery. We reached the ruins just in time for sunset which was fortuitous since the ruins were a) free b) beautiful c) empty.


Ze sunset over the ruins of the fortifications. The wooden part of the castle isn't there any more but the walls and moat were. We wandered took, took lots of pics, visited the shrine (which became kinda spooky in the dusk) and then escaped from the mosquitos *L* I should point out that my camera was malfunctioning for most of the afternoon and I was really worried about it since I leave for Nara/Kyoto in a week, but I bought a new battery today and it works perfectly now, thank god.

We then had a long drive back, interupted by dinner a noodle place. Owari.