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Hello all again! I am writing this from home and what a weekend I have had! Saturday night after work we had the All Japan Fireworks Competition in Tsuchiura, probably the biggest thing to happen in our city all year and it was amazing! Jackie and I finished work right on time and ran up towards the river where it was being held. The competition goes for 3 hours at night and the crowds in the city were amazing! We stationed ourselves in a carpark with an awesome view of the fireworks and while eating okinimoyaki (a delicious japanese pancake) we enjoyed the show. Afterwards, I headed to the station to pick up Krysta for her weekend in Tsuchiura.
The crowds from the festival were extreme and I have never seen that much traffic here before - it was insane! It took an hour just to get into the station, let alone find a place where she could find me when she got off the train and this was 3 hours after the show ended. She arrived, we dropped off her gear and went on a walking tour of the city at night - I took her to all the hot spots and with no-one around it was actually quite peaceful. Finally got back to my apartment at 2am and settled in with a movie before heading to bed.
So much for an early wake up call with a big day ahead. We had breakfast and went for a wander to the Lake that is the second largest in Japan that Tsuchiura sits on. It is famous for these traditonal white sailboats and here I was going on about them and how great they are, and we get to the lake, no boats! But a nice view all the same and nice to get some fresh air! got on the train to Mito and Katsuta to go to the beach and amusement park. We were very proud of ourselves when we got the bus to the correct place when not one word of english was on the signs and timetables (we were definately in rural ibaraki now) and the train ride from my city to Mito was amazing - rice paddies and forest - I love it and I cant wait until I get a bike to go out and explore. Anyway after a lunch of Mos Burger (very nice but small portion sizes (im in Japan after all)) we headed to the amusement park. By then it was 4pm and the park was closing in an hour but we wanted to to go on the ferris wheel to see the panorama and to find out how to get to the beach.. well what a story. We found the ferris wheel and enjoyed our ride, figuring out the way to the beach (or so we thought) on our journey. After the ferris wheel, we made our way to the exit... or not.. Turns out we were still in the amusement park and when the park shut at 5pm we were still inside but nowhere near an exit - panic and the dark skies set in and we were worried - locked inside a park for the night in a strange city - not my idea of fun! Finding the nearest exit, Krysta went to try to open the gates and as she did and alarm went of and a employee came to see what the commotion was from - turns out we were in the park until 5:30pm - with the gates padlocked and we could only play the stupid gaijin card!! Finally we were outside the park and near the beach - but the side we were on had massive fences and we couldnt get onto the beach anyway! What a waste of time that was - at least we got to walk on the sand for a bit - by the time we were out of the park, it was dark and we had a bit of a hike ahead of us to the next town so we decided to call it a night and wandered back towards the bus stop.
Now as an Australian I am generally not scared of spiders but the spiders in Japan scare the s*** out of me! They are bright green and blue and huge and make their webs in low lying trees - now because Japanese people are shorter then me - the trees arent trimmed and I am hitting my head on the trees all the time - that means I am at risk from spiders aswell. So here we were on the side of a freeway - in the dark with giant spiders and rain around us - not fun at all! Once we were through the scary stretch, we hit the factory outlets for a coffee while waiting for a bus back to the bus station - I like the factory outlet and I may make my way back there again some day...
When we arrived back home, I took Krysta to a sushi train in my area - I have become a big fan of the sushi train! I can buy an entire meal including drink for Y1000 - about $8 and be full afterwards and its healthy. It has become our socialising dinner - a version of the pub meal back home! And Karaoke was next stop at Ban Ban Karaoke - my local one.. What an enjoyable time karaoke has become and pretty cheap aswell - all the western songs, free drinks and cheap meals aswell - I love it! Then another movie at home to chill and reminisce about our crazy day - more adventures the next day though!
Earlier day on the Monday to go to Tsukuba City. It is the nearest big city to me - about a 30 minute bus ride and with all the big shops - it is great. Its also home to a university so lots of cheap deals with all that entails. We had the aim to climb part of mount tsukuba and get the cable car aswell - but another adventurous day lay ahead. We got the bus to Tsukuba and even managed to find the bus to Mt Tsukuba township, but the mistakes started there - we got off too early and I thought we would have to walk to the cable car - and that lead us on a 2 hour trek in the wrong direction in a little town to nowhere, that we ended up having to turn around and not climb Mt Tsukuba in the end. It turns out the view was better from Tsukuba City itself and the closer we got to the mountain, the more the clouds and poor weather set in. Oh well we saw some of the countryside and the beautiful contrast of colours - but Krysta came to Ibraki to see mountains and beaches - we saw them but didnt experience - oh well next time!
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