On Thursday (the 31st), Jo and I arrived at Himeji station with all of our luggage. We went across the road to the Hotel Sun Garden, where we`d arranged to meet Simon and Romit (our Japanese teacher form UWA). Somehow it worked out perfectly and Romit bought us all a coffee before we caught the taxi to our Uni for the next four months, Himeji Dokkyo.
As soon as we arrived we met our host families and were told about how to get to university and suchlike. I was met by Kyoko, my host mother who (thankfully) can talk a bit of English. We took a cab to her house and then after she`d made me a massive plate of Yakitori (fried noddles and chicken), I had a nap. After that she showed me the way to Uni by bike. It`s gonna take about 20 minutes there and 20 minutes back each day so thats about 40 minutes more exercise than I usually get.
On the way back we visited Shosha San (Mt. Shosha), which is where parts of `The Last Samurai` were filmed. I can see why, on the little mountain trails between the temples atop the mountain you can`t see any traces of modern civilisation. I think I enjoyed the walk more than the temples in Sagano just because they were in a more natural, forest setting.
The next day Kyoko had planned a visit to the Toy museum with her Daughter Naoko and her Granddaughter Hakaru. Shigehiro (my host father), had to work (he`s the general manager for FujiPreen, who stick a film on LCD screens for Sony, Toshiba, Nokia etc), so he couldn`t come. It was interesting-ish, pretty much the Himeji version of History Village. Kyoko`s spoiling me – I told her what Japanese foods I like and she`s going to cook them all for me.
Anyway I`m having a good time and I hope all you people in Australia are too.
I Can`t wait to offload all my stories onto all of you when I get back,
Danny
