YamaYama Cooool: So Desu Ne (Day 2)

Day 2 started not so early, but not too late, either. We were all up and about by 10, sweeping and cleaning up the house in preparation for leaving. Drummond and I made camembert sandwiches for everyone, though there was no toaster. Sawako dished out jarred (like tinned, but in jars) fruit for everyone.

We spent a few minutes trying to work out the logistics of getting everybody into two cars. In the end, most people squished into Tomy's car, and our car kept the same passengers. For a while, Sawako was going to ride with Drummond's guitar on top of her, but in the end we brought it along with us.

Our first stop was Shin's house again, dropping off last night's utensils as well some left over food. After that we went to Yama Cafe/Kitchen Usuda for lunch. Shin knew the owner and we had a nice selection of things to eat: some bamboo shoot gratin, cabbage soup, pizza, and a large choice of bread. We had cake for desert. It was rather tasty. I wrote in one of their guest books, in both Japanese and English. It was rather silly, though!

Sawako joined us in our car, a straight swap for Drummond's guitar, and we headed to a river, where we sat on rocks for a few hours. We stopped off at a convenience store on the way for drinks, and even bumped into Shin's mother again. At the river, Drum and Tomy had a swim, but from Drum's screams of agony I think the water was very cold. Other than that, we skimmed a lot of rocks. We spent a couple of hours in that beautiful setting just relaxing.

Our next activity was to be strawberry picking, but Shin called up and it seems that many people have all ready been this season and so there are few left. Instead we went to a souvenir shop (an interesting substitution) called Farm Guernsey. I had a large Mr. Whippy, which is supposedly famous in Kyushu, which was tasty. We also bought a couple of small presents for the guys back at Cambridge House.

We began the journey home after that with a few stops on the way. The first was to the onsen that we had planned to visit yesterday. It was rather crowded, with only a small inside bath and a larger outdoor one. There were a few children just jumping around and having fun, uninhibited. There was also a deck for sitting on and admiring the great view of the countryside from high up on the hill. The water was hot, which is relaxing to begin with, but gets uncomfortable after a while.

When we got out, the girls had yet to appear, so we went for a short car ride, with Eriko who had not gone in. We parked by the side of the road and watched the sunset, also calculating that the Earth turns at 1,666.66kph. In fact, it rotates at 1,674.396kph, so definately not a bad guess at all!

We collected the girls and came home after that, stopping off to get dinner on the way, though we tried numerous places before we found one. The first few were closed and then we got to a place where nobody seemed to have any rice. We managed to eat in the end, though. I had ramen and the others had a variety of Japanese dishes, some of which looked tasty, others did not.

We got home at about 12am; Sawako slept on sleeping-Drum's shoulder for most of the rest of the journey. Shin and I listened to Radiohead some more before putting on some Japanese band called Natural Flours. It was a great trip, and Drum and I had a good time. Shin organised it very well. The weather was beautiful for the whole two days, which definitely gave everything a happy, cheery feeling. Kimochiii!