Hotel Hamaso Miyazaki

... kurz ins Meer gesprungen und dann auch wieder raus. Aber vorher haben wir noch die Karte gesucht fuer unsere Wertsachenkoerbchen. Na ich bin gleich mal hingerannt und hab der erklaert das ich die karte verloren hab. Dann ist noch ein Typ dazugekommen und hat mit mir auf english geredet und gemeint, das ist nicht so tragisch. Dann will ich grad wieder gehen, seh ich das andi es gefunden hat. Aaa あったの。 ; Gut dann ...

I spent a great couple of nights last weekend at THE BAR. Its a bar in Miyazaki above the Pauls Smith Clothes shop not far from the main Miyazaki Station.�@The owner, Sean, from New Zealand has a great little establishment there. Its only been open for less than a year but its the night spot of choice for all the foreign community in town and most of the Japanese people too if the crowd on Friday and Saturday nights ...

... to turn it off. We just couldn't figure that one out so I went to the rental guy with my electronic translator in hand. I can only translate one word at a time so when I came in and announced emergency he got all excited. Good thing I type fast. When he figured out what I meant we all had a good laugh! Spent a couple of days touring around Kirishima Japan and enjoying a wonderful onsen. Hot spas every day and good food in ...

The inevitable question, "What does it feel like to be back?" It's a sensory overload to have everyone chattering at you (and each other) in unaccented English. After 9+ months of zero native English speaking people, it's overwhelming to have all the English conversation, radio, TV, newspapers and magazines. Suddenly, I can understand what they want me to buy and I still don't want it. I am surprised though, how non ...

... 42 weeks and 15 countries we have reached the end of our little bicycle adventure. We are flying back to Boulder CO where my aunt and uncle have stored our "not in the storage unit" stuff (thank you!). We will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my family in Wisconsin then packing up the car and driving from Boulder to Seattle where we look forward to getting jobs so we can start saving money to go on another adventure!

... NO traffic at all, most excellent! We had hoped to treat ourselves to another Minshuku experience, but again, progress was slow, as the hills wore us down and as darkness fall fast, we were still short of anything big enough to have a Minshuku, but at least had a lovely camping spot on the beach. The park, I should point out, was so modern, it had a handicap wheelchair access ramp right down into the deep, soft sand by the waves. Go figure. We were in need of a break ...

Mushi Mushi (How the Japanese answer the phone), I`m very open to experiencing new things, but I would LOVE a meal without some sort of fish product. My stomach is rebelling from my new Japanese diet and my appetite is almost completely gone. I`m eating about as much as Meghan or Oliver in a given day. Today was my first vocational ...

... the highest suspension bridge in the world and taken a museum tour. All of this while defiling myself every night trying to keep up with the Japanese tradition of filling your beer, sochu or sake glass before you finish your last. UNREAL. Every bar has a karoke machine that is well used. Tonight, I will perfect the phrase, E Eh Kedo des, which means no-thank you. They don`t take no easily and usually I give in first. More Later.

Ok! I made it to Japan, however at the airport I was quite surprised to see 20 rotarians with a HUGE banner welcoming us to Japan. I was not in any shape to meet anyone, but I didn't have a choice. We were quickly shuffled off to our Hotel where the local Rotarians had dinner waiting on us. We met our host families that we will stay with starting Monday Night. However, only a few people could speak English and my host could not. When Japanese people ...

... guess that a "biggest ferris wheel contained-within-a-park-overlooking-the -ocean in Japan" sign was hanging around somewhere... Speaking of which, I got the train back to Miyazaki after this to visit the Science Museum, home to "the largest planetarium in the world" if you believe the Lonely Planet, or "one of the largest planetariums in the world" if you believe the Miyazaki Guide that I picked up from the Information Desk, or "one of the largest ...