Roving Japan

Day 65 Photoset

Tomorrow we are heading off to Yousuke’s sisters cabin for a couple of nights, so our last day at Yousuke’s house in the city was pretty relaxing. We didn’t do much, just made sure that I cleaned my smelly backpack.

I got the 7 year old to stomp on the bag while it soaked in some water and soap. Then we let it dry outside. I hope it worked!

Yousuke got a sweet toy in the mail today. He received a massage bed, complete with leg squeezing wraps and a neck massage attachment. A foot massage thing also came in the mail. I guess as Yousuke inches towards retirement, he is ready to relax!

We all took turns on the bed and everyone gave it high marks. I usually don’t like massages, but this one was actually pretty good!

As we travel, the people we meet are constantly impressed at my claim to like “all Japanese food except natto.” During dinner, Yousuke gave me something called mozuku. He didn’t believe that I can eat just about anything, so he went out of his way to get something particularly disgusting to serve me. In this case, it was mozuku, which is basically 4oz of vinegar with some seaweed floating in it. You’re supposed to drink it.

Now, I don’t know about you, but drinking a shot of vinegar isn’t something I want to make a habit out of. The seaweed was fine, but really Yousuke? You gave me a shot of vinegar to drink. This is what my grandma prescribes for a sore throat, not something you have with dinner. Yousuke was really proud with himself that he had found something I couldn’t finish.

After the vinegar shot, we talked about the differences between Japanese and American breakfasts. I explained that it isn’t typical to eat a dinner salad first thing in the morning. A typical American breakfast would probably be something like 2 eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, maybe some pancakes and orange juice. The image of breakfast without veggies shocked him. No lettuce?!

So I think I have my revenge for the vinegar planned out. Risa and I are going to make a classic American breakfast for Yousuke. I can’t wait! We’re going to buy the ingredients tomorrow, then we’ll cook the next day.

Before going to bed, we took some good-bye photos.

Day 1 Photoset

Our first day on the road was not without problems. It started out fine, albeit a little late. We left the hostel around 8:30 and started walking towards the pier before turning left on hwy 10 and going north.

Along the way, we stopped in at a “Chyambo Mochi” place. The shop keeper was a nice lady and we chatted a bit about the road ahead. Unfortunately hwy 10 has no shoulders and you can’t really walk on it. We decided that since we didn’t really have another option, we would give the road a shot anyway.

Whoops.

Hwy 10 is basically suicide. Constant stream of big trucks and buses driving pretty fast with little or no shoulder for people to walk on. We kept going, but it didn’t take long before it was basically impossible to continue on foot. We stopped at a little neighborhood and talked to an old man about another route, but he explained that the roads up the hill from us were pretty complicated and hard to walk on as well. But we were in luck because there is a bus stop on the hwy right where we were and we should just take the bus to the next town. So, rather than kill ourselves, we jumped on a bus and took it to the city limit of Shigetomi.

From there, we just walked through town to our present location at a shrine outside of the town of Kajiki.

We met one other interesting person today. While eating lunch I was giving Risa a shoulder massage, when a man came over and explained that I was doing it wrong. I needed to put my fingers behind her shoulder blade and move her arm like so. He demonstrated a few times how to do it properly, then also showed me how to stretch her back. We think he might be a chiropractor who happened to walk by, or a crazy old man who likes to give random people messages.