Hanami - Flower Viewing

This is how the Japanese do it:

And this is how the Gaijin do it:

*ps thanks to all the people who's photos I stole.

Rock'n'Roll

We went to see some bands play in Fukuyama. Their styles ranged from
rockabilly to punk to metal = lots of fun!
Here are some photos taken by our Aussie friend Vanessa:

Vanessa & Yoppi

We mostly went there to see our friend Yama's band, Stag:

I reckon Yama-san would be good at the haka:

Making a stag sign?

Yama-san rocks on

24th Birthday

Due to the recession, I did my part and only had a Birthday Weekend, rather than a Birthday Month. Nevertheless, it was a good weekend. First, a bunch of us met in the park and drank conbini (convenience store) beers.

My English teacher friends from work thought this was a little strange, but joined in anyway. Although Mr Okazaki spent most of the time grilling my friends about tiny grammar points.

Do you like my "Loli-pop" dress?

This guy joined us and made comments about my friends boobs. Unfortunately, she can understand Japanese. Then it turned out he could understand Japanese, after we'd said he was homeless (which he assured us he was not).

Then, after a bit of street arm wrestling (I won't tell you who won)...

We made our way to karaoke

Simon and Priya sing a song...

...but I guess Priya's voice wasn't so nice.

Me and Priya sing M.I.A... they have a very random selection of songs.

Golden Week Holiday (Failure)

For Golden Week (a four day holiday) we tried to do a bike ride through the islands, but all the bikes were gone. That was the start of our stupid holiday. So we got a ferry to one of the islands and walked for 5 hours to the next ferry terminal:

I'll just say that Simon took the photos on this holiday, and that "art" is subjective.

A girl gets in trouble with the law, probably for driving while wearing pyjamas

These bridges go right across all the islands. There was concrete everywhere, and some kind of industry... steel or shipbuilding. And there were lots of Philipinos, they work for less than Japanese. They were really friendly and talkative to us.

Stepping out in style!

This one's to show that I did in fact exercise.

Finally after paying heaps for several ferries, buses, trains, taxis, and getting lost several times, we got to our backpackers at Matsuyama, only to find that they had a midnight curfew. So we quickly had dinner and looked around the town. We also had our first onsen (hot spring/public bath house) experiences, at Dogo Onsen, one of the oldest onsen, with a history dating back 3000 years. Simon said the men were quite curious about the European anatomy.

People who are paid to look traditional

The next day we still couldn't get hold of any bike's, and I may have had a little tanty after we found out we would have to get the bus back to Fukuyama, after spending all our money.

But at least we got to walk over the bridge, to the bus stop.

Simon uses camera trickery to hide all the concrete

Come on, let the palagi's across too