Hi All

Kanazawa was lovely but boiling hot - 35C but so humid here. We went on a tour around and visited a couple of Shinto shrines and a ninja temple, complete with hidden staircases, escape and attack dens and even a suicide room! That was cool.

On our last day in Kanazawa, we were leaving at 12pm to catch two trains to Hiroshima - one 2.5hr train to Osaka and then a shinkansen (bullet) train to Hiroshima. We had time in the morning to visit Kenroku-en, the local gardens said to be Japan's third best in the country. We had to catch a bus there and when we got off, chappers realised he left the camera on there and it sped off through the town. We had 550 photos on there. So we called our tour leader and asked him to try lost and found. The gardens were beautiful but we couldn't enjoy them - chappers was stressing out.

We got back to the hotel for twelve and the tour leader had found the camera, but we had to catch a local bus to pick it up, 40mins out of town! This meant we would miss both trains and had to make our own way to Hiroshima - anyway, we got it back because the Japanese people here are so friendly its great. Even with the language barrier, they go out of their way to help and we made it to Hiroshima...with the camera! Japan is our favourite place mainly because of its culture and the people. In Hiroshima, it was pouring with rain and we caught a taxi to meet the rest of the group. He got an umbrella out of the boot, and escorted us over the busy intersection to meet our tour leader, who he also called twice on the journey to make sure we'd be collected at the right place!

That night, we ate at a family restaurant and had the local speciality omniyaki, which is a thin pancake with cabbage, strips of thin pork, noodles, thin egg omlette on top and a special sauce, it was cheap and delicious, our favourite meal so far. we washed that down with a cocktail and then persuaded 9 of the other members of the group to go to kareoke which was brillliant, we had our own vip room with tv, our own waitress and a massive book of songs, plus it was 2,000 yen each for 2 hours including all your drinks, needless to say we made the most of that. chappers had about 7 pints and did a rendition of im a believer, little by litte, rock dj. i did a duet with angie of meatloaf and journey, then me and chappers did crocodile rock and i finished the night off with ice ice baby....... we had a really good night, a good way to end a stressful day.

the next day we went to the island miyajima, saw the floating tori gate in the sea and loads of jellyfish, we then had a walk on the island to the temple, there were loads of tame deer who were looking for food, one ended up biting a japanese guy who tried to hit it with his back for trying to eat his dinner.....not a good idea with the size of its antlers. in the afternoon we went to the a bomb museum in hiroshima which was really interesting, over 90 percent of the buildings in hiroshima were destroyed in the atomic bomb the americans dropped on 6th august 1945. the museum was really disturbing with the photos of survivors who were burnt so badly many of them looked like they were encased in concrete,  very upsetting. the city as it is now is amazing, you would never have thought anything would have happened here and the people are so welcoming.

been on a bike ride today through the countryside and loads of rice fields which was great, were off out to an italian tonight and a few bevvies.

thanks for your messages

love to you all

nat and chappers xxxxx