Weekend activities

Well, my first real weekend in my house!! Friday night I had a lovely dinner with Ayami and three of her friends, one of whom had studied in England last year and is now working in a local junior high school as an English teacher. I find it interesting that both she and Ayami have studied at university in Japan as well as overseas (US and UK), yet both have returned to their hometowns in this remote, green, mountainous area of southern Japan...

Saturday, I did not do much during the day aside some shopping and reading. In the evening there was another summer festival put on by yet another local community, there was more yakitori. traditional dancing, fireworks and an interesting pasttime which the children find amusing....an activity which consists of fishing mini goldfish from a shallow pool with a flimsy paper scoop!!

Sunday, I went for a drive to Nishiki, about 20km north...this is where there is a large shopping centre so I had fun wandering around looking at various items...Sunday afternoon, I was invited by Harumi to visit her house and after meeting her son and husband, having tea and cake, we were off again on another outing up the mountain...to the middle of nowhere where two incredible suspension bridges built with no apparent purpose (that I was able to ascertain in my limited Japanese) other than to walk across them and admire the view! We did also almost get lost...I was following along thinking that the locals would know the way, however it turned out that Harumi had only been twice previously and as we continued along the path it eventually came to a dead end and we had to turn around and go back, quite hilarious actually!

More photos here...