Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th October
School both days, Wednesdays as normal only until the end of third, as I then had roatary, and again a half day host today, today we went to kanazawa to the gold leaf place, and made chopsticks, by that I mena decorated them with gold leaf, I want to go back there again and make several more pairs as souviners as it was very cheap! After that we went to a kimono making place, which I also want to go back to because you can make your own segments of them, but it takes several hours and we got there half and hour befor closing. Then it was back to their house for a bit befor we were goined by more extended family and headed out to yaki niki for dinner.

Thursday 15th October
So I have this next week off because my class has exams. Today I spent the morning studying befor going out and having my lunch bought at a convini in the park really close to us (not the park that I usually mention) and then returning home to find a half decient movie on the tv (in English) so I watched that until the others got home.
Friday 16th October
So this morning I said stuff it to studying, I do have a fair bit to do befor I will feel comfortable going into my prefeiency test, expecially as far as kanji, but it was such good weather, and over all it doesn’t matter what score I get in the profiency test, ill never get this opportunity to explore Japan again, so today I armed with a map headed to the train station, bought a ticket. I had really no idea where I wanted to go but had decided how much I was willing to spend on the train, so I ended up going to a little town called fukuoka. Turns out I had kinda been meaning to go there, they have the cutiest little Japanese music museum, which I ended up spending about 3 hours, in even though there is really less than 30 min worth of stuff to see, because the lady that was there was soo interested in talking to me, why I was in Japan and why I had gone to fukuoka, she found my story about the train cost to be very very funny. But she ended up giving me a book as well,. After several cupps of tea and biskicts, but this book is all about traditional Japanese music, and would have cost me about $30! She asked that I go back there again befor I leave japan and after that I think I will have to. Fukuoka is also home to a camera museum, which I found incredibly intresting, mabey a little nerdy yes, but I enjoyed it. I then had lunch at the train station waiting for a train home, and then fell asleep in frount of the tv watching another movie.

Saturday 17th October
Not a lot today was the 40th annerverary of harukis kindy so haru and papa were out at that most of the day, while mama was at yoshikis school in preparation for tomorrow, so this left me at home with Yoshiki, gosh he can be annoying at times. Latter, when haruki was home we watched “ponyo on the cliff above the sea” the latest studio ghibli film
Sunday 18th October
Today was yoshikis schools festival, I didn’t find it anywhere as near as fun as minem but then again it wasn’t aimed at me. But ti was good fun none the less. They had a cheap stall, where everything had been donated new, for them to sell, I bought a few things there coz it was cheap!
Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th October
Both days off school again, on Monday Yoshiki also had the day off school. So Monday was very unproductive, I had planed on going out on Tuesday but as it was really rainy weather that didn’t happen and I got a lot of study done
Wednesday 21st, Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd October
School, unfortunately my holidays were over and back to school I went. At least Wednesdays are only half days for me (because of rotary) on the way home I wanted to visit the op shop, but turns out its closed Wednesdays, ahh well. Thursday and Friday were both long days! But calligraphy on Friday was fun as usual, we learnt about the formation of hiragana and the kanji that they came from and then had to practise writing all the hiragana, old style.
Saturday 24th October
So this morning we left takaoka just after 8 to arrive in Nagoya for an early lunch at a well known tonkatsu restaurant. I must say I don’t think they are the nicest tonkatsu but that was just the sauce I chose, I didn’t particually like it. Ahh well. From there we went on to explore Nagoya castle, where the souviners were cheap, especially as this is the 3rd biggest city in Japan, and one of it main attractions, they could get away with prcies being so much higher,not that im complaining at all, I was just very surprised. Nagoya castle grounds are also home to some dear (much to my surprise) and the flower dolls, lifeish size dolls made out of flowers! As well as an impressive bonsai tree collection.
After the castle we went on to a museum which was mostly of old armor and weponary of the ;prds of the area. And then on to a friend of yoshikis house, they used o live in takaoka and went to kindy together, also they are children/grandkids of one fo the rotary members of my club over here. With them we went out to dinner. Of eel! Its actually a lot nicer than you think its going to be, again not my favourite food, but its what Nagoya it known for so…
It was then off to our hotel for the night, I had a fun time explaining to Yoshiki why I pulled the blinds and went behind them to take photos of the city.( to stop refection of the room we were in).

Sunday 25th October
So after a maccas breakfast in our hotel room we hopped back in the car, this time bound of Osaka. Yup true Japanese style holiday, pack as much into it as you possibly can while not really fully doing anything, but hey it was good fun. In Osaka we went to an aquarium and then a shopping street. Where we ate crab okonomiyaki! I love crab! Not so much octopus, and I think my host dad got a little offended when I refused to takoyaki which are octopus dumplings. But I really don’t like them and I have eaten them befor, and its not like they were going to go to waste as Yoshiki wanted more anyway.