And Finally... (for today)

Just like buses, eh? You wait for ages for a blog post, and three come along at once. I just know you are all waiting with baited breath and checking daily for my blog posts, aren't you?

So, I'm on holiday at the moment. This is why I have time to write blog posts and upload videos to youtube. We're in Japan (as usual).

Sometimes I feel like I'm bored of coming to Japan. I have genuinely lost count of the number of times I've been here, it must be about ten. Each time is similar (especially since we have been bringing children) except that with each extra child, the chances that we can palm all of them off on members of the hagiwara family at the same time become more remote.

But in fact, it is still great. I feel pretty much at home here, and am up for almost anything a Japanese person would be... but occasionally I still get a feeling like 'what would everyone at home think if they saw me doing THIS...?'. One example is climbing to the caldera of an active volcano last week (climbing is a bit of an exaggeration, it was mainly driving, followed by a pretty easy walk up a metalled path, Alex came up too) but the attraction was not the walk but the bloody great huge hole where all the fire comes out.

But that isn't the best bit. I think everyone at home would like to climb a volcano, I mean, who wouldn't? But for imagining you friends and colleagues looking on in stunned disbelief, you just can't beat Japanese food. Of course sushi is something that we're all familiar with now (although I still know lots of people who won't try it on principle), but in the hotel we were served (as the 8th course of the 10 course meal - the proprietor was somewhat surprised to learn that in the west, you typically pile all your food on one big plate) a fish head, about the size of the palm of your hand, and prepared in such a way that it could be consumed wholesale. I've never seen that before, usually with fish heads you have to pick them to bits with chopsticks to find the delicate meat hiding behind the eyeballs. But this thing could be eaten, fins, bones, eyeballs and all. Very crunchy, like a big fishy crisp. Yummy!!

Obviously the feeling that it is cool to impress your friends by eating weird stuff affects Alex too. Hence she asked me to take this picture of her eating flower tempura, so that she can show her friends back home.

She wouldn't try the fish head though. Although the next day when we got the picking to bits variety, she did enjoy extracting the eyeballs...