Sakura, Sakura

What a time to be in Japan. These last two weeks have been beautiful. We have had 2 hanami (flower viewing) parties and gone for walks around the lake nearly every day.
I have added my photo collection to my photobucket so go and have a look at what you are missing.

here are a few tasters

coco farm and winery

the week before i went to kyushu, i took a group of the participants of our world culture seminar on an excursion to Coco Farm and Winery in Tochigi.
Its a winery which is staffed by people with disabilities. The wine and food were amazing.

I bought two bottles and i think i will buy more over the net. It tasted like wine
we would get back home, not japanese wine. most japanese wines i have tried are way too sweet, but this place uses french methods and varieties. the chief wine maker is an american from califorinia.

Photos here

we also went to a place called Ashikaga Gakko, japan's oldest university, on the way back home. Most of the photos are from there. i took a video of the winery instead

kyushu photos

on friday i took my bike on the plane and headed down to kyushu for a 300km bike ride with JETs from Oita around the Kunisaki Peninsular, afterwards i went to mt aso (an active volcano) and on to fukuoka. click on the names for the photos

here are my favs


mt aso from the distance. i rode to the top!


the crater of mt aso. we could only stay for 5 mins cause of the poisonous gas..


the Oita JETs i rode with around the Kunisaki Peninsular

koko ga hen

sorry to not have posted in a long time. i have been busy at work and also traveling to hong kong and also back to Australia for my brother's wedding

lots of photos are now available on my photobucket.

hong kong

josh and em's wedding

here are a few of my favs

the kiss


the happy couple


hong kong fish market


hong kong skyline

dinos are not extint after all

who would have thought they were hiding in a park near mito!



see more here!

more photos from engagement party

this is one that kate took. its my favourite, all the girls in one!



you can get to more of kate's photos here

photos from engagement party

i know i have been pretty silent lately, but i have been busy with business trips, holidays in japan and a trip home to melbourne for christmas

here is the first set of photos i have uploaded.
they are from our engagement party at holiava bar in richmond





more photos to come!

photos from recent holidays

Nov 3rd
Kasama festival - Horseback archery demonstration



Nov 4th - 6th
Fukushima - Onsen holiday, visit to Shimogo, Ouchijuku and Kitakata

hakone

As i wrote in a post last week, i went to Hakone with Katie last weekend for a girl's onsen holiday.

We met up at odawawara in the morning and then took the train up to hakone.

our first stop on the trip was yumoto-hakone town. we walked around looking at the town, river, food etc and then got on the local railway to go up to the town where our hotel was, ohiradai.

our hotel was not exactly what we were expecting for $100 a night, but it was still ok. and we were to find out later that the food and the onsen made up for the pockey little room.

after that it was lunch and then to the Hakone open air art museum. you will see in my pictures that its really cool. the whole park is the museum and there are so many hands on art works to play with. kids would love it!

then it was back to the hotel and on to the yummy food and great onsen. actually the onsen was not inside the hotel. you got changed in to your yukata and walked outside up a small alley to a different building. the onsen was inside a small garden and youhave it all to yourself.

the next day we took the railway up to gora. we missed the cabel car up the mountain by 1 minute and even though it was still on the platform, the guy at the station wouldnt let us in. so we walked up hill to the next stop to catch it from there.

which was a good idea cause we found a really cute cafe and photography museum beside the next station. we wouldnt have gotten off there if we hadnt missed the train so it was worth it.

then it was up the hill and a transfer onto the cable car. it took us across the valley to a sulfer onsen where they cook hard boiled eggs in teh water cause its so hot.

we ate 3 each because its said that each one will add 7 years on to your life span..

we couldnt get on the next part of rope way because they were doing work on it, so it was onto a crowded bus to catch the pirate ship ferry across the lake. the view was great but the weather was getting bad and it started to rain while we were on the boat.

we ran over quickly to a restaurant for lunch cause we had no umbrellas. by then it was getting late and time to head home. ibaraki is a long way from hakone...

i took a bus back to odawara and katie went the other way back to numazu. the bus company was a bit annoying because the bus i panned to catch didnt stop cause it was too full and the bus katie wanted to catch just drove straight past her..

eventually we both got home and it was a great trip even with the rain and bad transport. we have planned another girl"s onsen trip for dec

here are my photos

Katie's photos and blog


one of the sculptures in the museum.

ahega halloween

like last year, we all got dressed up to go to ageha (the biggest nightclub in asia) to go to the halloween party.
you cant take a camera inside the club, so i didnt take one at all, but april did and here are her photos

april's photos

we all met up before hand and had dinner (all dressed up) at coco's and then took a train and drove a bit to get there by 11.30pm

the place is huge but its also packed with people. we all tried to stay together but lost everyone at some point.

lots of great costumer. i was an angel, good old 100 yen shop for the wings and a left over halo from last year.

we left at around 4am, and for some reason it took 5 hours to get home when it should have only taken 2.5....

needless to say i was wrecked today and havent done anything useful apart from sleeping, have a nice long bath and watching a dvd..

i will put more photos up when the others who went too put them on line.