Home sweet home

Trip Start Apr 20, 2004

Trip End Aug 28, 2005

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Japan Iwakura, Japan
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Iwakura - the smallest city in the Aichi Prefecture and our home town! So what is there to do in this wee town 15mins north of Nagoya?..........nothing! Well that is not entirly true. Iwakura is famous for the Gojo river which is only a block or so from our house. Ill get to describing the house a bit later on. Anyway, the Gojo river is an Aichi famous spot for Hanami or cherry blossom viewing and in the spring boasts a viewing festival on the river banks - a spectucalar festival where Japanese business men can be found at early as 10am sitting in groups swigging mugs of cold beer and eating meat on sticks known as yakitori. By 12pm there is a right ol jolly atmosphere. This year we got right amongst it with our kiwi mates Jim and Becc, parked up by the river with a few chu-hi and some festival food - okonomiyaki (japanese savoury pancake thing), grilled squid on a stick, karage (fried chicken) and viewed the blossoms. Frequent shouts of "hello" as the japanese became more willing to try their english and "sugoi" or great as admirers viewed the blossoms

Amenity Komatsu - home

. Well that festival was probably the most happening Iwakura has ever been. Apart from that there is not much to do - a stroll down the river a few times a week, visits to the supermarket, 100yen shop and thats about as exciting as it gets!
Iwakura is also famous for making koinobori (carp fish flags) which are flown outside houses on Boys day (a national holiday! note that girls day is chores as usual!). A few weeks back we got to spend a day making our own - see the pics.
Despite the lack of fun things to do there is a few "oishi" restaurans around. Our fav being the Japanese Izakaya Umauma. This great little place only ever plays Beetles music and provides the best Izakaya food in Japan plus lots of cold nama biiru! Our other frequented restauran is the okonomiyaki shop run by a lovely lady with limited english who is always interested to talk to us. They make the best and biggest okonomiyaki and as we discovered lately - oishi aisukuriimu to kabocha saasu or icecream with a pumpkin sauce - interesting but oh so good!
Japanese tv is terrible - mostly squaking young ones playing some kind of tv game. Once a week we get a US movie - usually a terrible movies from the 80s but it is in English. The bilingual news is hallarious - A lot of Japanese with a sentance of English translation. The funniest went something like this - "the traffic in Tokyo was stopped today because there was a squirrel on the intersection" - real groundbraking news! Hence we have managed to watch the entire 4 seasons of 24 (highly recommended to anyone who hasnt seen them but be careful as they are highly addictive too!) and the entire 7 seasons of Sex and the City!
Our flat is 2 mins from the train station and is probably best described as a box a little larger than a shoebox

Dan and Natsumi

! The lounge is the living room and the bedroom, the kitchen is the kitchen (if you can call a sink, an electric element, a toaster and a microwave a kitchen?), the dining room and the laundry, the washing line and inbetween is the bathroom. We now know that space is a luxury along with beds, couches, coffee tables, ironing boards, gas burners or even just more than 1 burner, pantrys, bench space, cupboards, backyards, frontyards, washing lines, balconys, grass, insulation and i think ill stop there.
Most weekends are spent hanging out in Nagoya or Gifu, catching up with mates and enjoying the good times here.
Maybe Ill miss Iwakura, maybe I wont???