(01/04/04 - 30/04/04)
| (27/03/04) - 05/04/04 |
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06/04/04 |
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07/04/04 |
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08/04/04 |
Haruko Opening Ceremony
More bowing. |
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09/04/04 |
Yokokan Garden (near the FIA) Had some time on my hands, and it was a lovely day, so I decided to do a bit of exploring.
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10/04/04 |
Eiheiji in the Spring Pottered off on a beautiful sunny day with Brandon to Eiheiji (Bran's first experience of it!). The acolytes were all over the place today, making it hard to take a photo ("It is forbidden to photograph monks in training"), but I got a few pics, nonetheless. See the photos |
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11/04/04 |
Festival in Fukui City Not sure what it was in aid of, but have a feeling it was something to do with the cherry blossom! Marching bands, people in period (Japanese) costume - samurai, peasants, geisha, maiko, etc etc. It was really interesting to watch, and it looked as though the participants were having fun too! See the photos
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| 16/04/04 |
Hanami Enkai ("cherry blossom viewing party") Another enkai with my colleagues. It was held at Atarashiya up Mount Asuwa, although most of the cherry blossom has gone now. I wasn't drinking (for once), but it was a really good party. The food (yakitori, tofu, etc) was really good, and everyone was very happy and chatty! |
| 17/04/04 |
Bike ride - Mission Sakura Dori Well, I'd only seen one end of the road I live just off, so I set of in search of the other end...it took quite some time! It's a long road! See the photos |
| 18/04/04 |
A Day Out With Tom - Mount Asuwa In the wonderful weather I actually went from blue to almost-pink! We went to see the animals at the top of the mount, and had a general potter round. It was a great day out. Thank you Tom! ;) See the photos |
| 19/04/04 |
Tengu and The Big Echo In honour of Teresa's sister - Maria - visiting Japan, a crowd of us got together (on a school night, no less!) for alcohol and Japanese food at Tengu. Great food, great company, great alcohol. A few of us went on to karaoke after the meal, which was the best laugh I've had in ages (and was a fab end to an otherwise pretty abysmal day). A few hard-cores went on to Neres after, but I gave up at that point (we did nomi-hodai, all-you-can-drink while we were karaokeing), and cycled home in the down-pour to bed. See the photos |
| 24/04/04- 25/04/04 |
Reinan Car Rally My team, The Four Hamsters, came in an amazing fourth place after a day of questions, missions, fun and frolics in the sun. It was very hard work, but we all had a great time. Thanks to Stuart, Robbie, Marty and Liam for organising our day out in the sun, and the meal and accommodation afterwards. See the photos |
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29/04/04 - 05/05/04 |
The Glory that is Golden Week! Four national holidays and a weekend in quick succession! Bliss! Were it not for the fact that the entire nation is on holiday. Memo to self: next Golden Week, brave the doubled plane ticket prices and leave the country! Having said that, the first few days were relatively quiet. Tom and I drove up the scenic route through the mountains and into Ishikawa prefecture. We followed the coast up (it was great to be by the sea again), and ended up at the top of the Ishikawa peninsula. We hadn't planned anything before we left, which was great - we could just go where we wanted. We had a few mini adventures, and actually managed to find accommodation each night (although we were prepared to sleep in the car if we had to). The weather was beautiful right up until Sunday evening, when it started to rain. Having spent the day in the city of Kanazawa, we decided we'd had enough of Ishikawa and the battle for hotel rooms, so we drove back late Sunday night to Fukui, with the plan to drive down the Echizen coast to Obama. The weather, however, was against us and was so bad on Monday and Tuesday, that we just stayed in the shi. On Wednesday, we visited the Dinosaur Museum in Katsuyama - which is fabulous! I highly recommend it. So there you go. A summary of our Golden Week! See the photos See photos of an impromptu meal |
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