Miyazaki Road Trip (Day 1)

Drummon, Ciarán, James, Felicity, Rushen and I caught the 8.35 bus into the university, where we met Kanashima-san. We then went to the car hire place just down the road and got our car: a 7-seater Toyota. The guy didn't seem to think we could drive, and everytime we were about to drive away, he opened the driver's door!

Drummond drove first on the 3 and a half hour trip, though he didn't seem to adjust to the bigger vehicle too quickly. There was a few sways, and sometimes shouts from the rest of us to tell him about the oncoming concrete block. We made it, though, to a little stopping point about half way through the journey, where Rushen took over. The in car GPS was really useful for getting us to the hotel, it even avoided one of the toll roads.

We stayed at the Hotel Sheradon Phoenix, which seemed like a really swanky, and luxurious place. There was a piano in the lobby, and pictures of Tiger Woods everywhere. Whilst we were waiting to check-in, some of the Hashin Tigers baseball team walked past us in their uniform! How cool. My name was the only they had spelt correctly, with things like: "Felecity", and "Drunnond". Our rooms were the cheaper, Japanese-style rooms, which meant that we slept on futons on the floor.

We didn't stay too long, just enough to leave our stuff, and we got back in the car and drove into Miyazaki city centre. We went in to a postoffice to get money, and I found some postcards at last! However, they are paintings, not photographs. Still good though.

We had lunch at an Italian restaurant called "La Vie en Rose"... go figure!? It was nice, though, and made a change from Japanese food. After that we drove on some more to the Shinto shrine to Jimmu, the supposed first emperor of Japan. It was a really spread out shrine, with loads of little windy side paths to explore. It was really cool. There was also a really big derelict house, and most disturbingly: a big mosaic with "Rotary International" written on it!

Then we popped into a buddhist temple that we had seen on the way in. A little lady came out and told us to go inside, so we did. Everything was gold, and it all looked really lovely. Then the buddhist priest appeared, and invited us to sit and have some tea, which the lady brought out for us, along with some cakes. So we spent the next 40 minutes trying to communicate with him in our best Japanese about buddhism. It was a Shin buddhist temple, not a Zen one, and he had been on a 6 month bus tour around most of the world. We've learnt how to ask "What did you do today?" in lessons, and his answer to this was: "um... praying". It was a really cool experience, though, and made the whole trip worthwhile.

Afterwards, James, Ciarán and Flick drove back to the hotel to change, whilst the rest of us stayed and tried to find a place for dinner and drinkage. It was raining quite heavily and after getting lost once, we went back to the station and bought umbrellas from the ￥100 shop. We went to a place called the "Suntory Shot Bar", since there was supposed to be an English speaking manager there according to the Lonely Planet, but no such luck. I had a revolting shot of whiskey.

After that we tried in vain to find a place called "Restaurant Bar de Metre", but the map didn't seem to be right and no-one had heard of it. In the end Drummond asked a couple of girls where a good place to eat would be, just as the others met up with us again. They took us down a little road, where, lo-and-behold, was the place we had been searching for. What a coincidence?

They had an all-you-can drink for 2 hours offer, so we took them up on that. The waitress, Chie, had lived in California for three years, and so spoke good English. She even pretended we had come in 15 minutes later. We ordered some pizza and started drinking, with the necessary games to accompany. Chie joined us later on for a few drinks, and we got quite drunk.

Some more gaijin arrived and sat at the table next to us, so we harassed them for the rest of the evening. They didn't seem to mind that much, however. We left at about midnight, and began a drunken walk back to the train station. Drummond repeatedly threw his newly purchased umbrella around, trying to get it on to roofs, but failing horrendously. He broke it in the end, but it didn't stop him. We got into two taxis and got taken home. In our taxi we spent the whole time shouting at him in Japanese - again, asking him what he had done today: "um... driving".

Back at the hotel, Ciarán found that the door marked "Private" was unlocked, and so ventured in. He stole two kimonos (the dressing-gown style ones): one for me, one for him. Cool. Our beds had been made for us, and we slept well.