Iya Valley and being a guide to Mika's friends from Kobe

Last weekend, after the lovely friday beach lash, mika and i went to the mountains for a quiet night in before waking up early the next morning to show a couple of Mika's friends around Kochi coz they had driven up here for the day! Seeing as tho they live in a city i decided (thats right, I decided coz japanese people have brain cramps if they have to decide shit) to take them to Iya Valley, which is just out off the border of kochi in Tokushima. Mika and i had never been there as well so we all got in my car and made the trek into the valley.

Our first stop after a lovely lunch was to see the Pissing Boy statue......comedy! but great view!

..hehe..

Heres a bit of a full frontal view

The two on the left are Mikas mates from Kobe. I honestly hadnt met them more than once so i didnt really get along too well with them. How big is that guys head?!?

its funny because its a statue of a boy pissing!

Then after getting a little lost, we found Kazura Bridge, which is a bridge made from vines and wooden planks to walk on and shit. Every 3 years they have to change the vines. It is quite scary to walk across as Mika soon found out.

U pay 500yen to cross this bridge and its constantly moving and swinging around and shite.

its best not to look down too much or else your in the drink. and ud better take one beam at a time and hold onto something.

Mika was scared a bit and is trying to smile but cant quite manage to get that worried look off of her face

... see its still there.

view from the bridge

Biwa-taki (Biwa Waterfall)

We didnt have have time to show them more and they had to work the next day so we left Iya quickly and i took them for a quick look at Kochi Castle before sending them off.

Beach Lash in Shirahama (White Beach)

im almost going to give up writing comments on some of these fotos. last friday, a few of the old kochi crew mixed together with some of the new kochi crew and went to camp on the beach and have a few QUIET bevvies with each other. Unfortunately the beers werent as quiet as we imagined; resulting in the following fotos!

meet Carl. he is so happy to have his picture taken....hehe

this is keyon (aussie matt's bf) and i think Milia(?)

heres another newbie, a fellow (not gay) australian called Davo and his missus Fumi

u can always tell when carls had a few bevvies. he goes exploring and climbs shit.....hence, this big ass rock.

flinty is showing us all that he in fact does have nipples....cheers for that buddy!

flinty, carl and myself: teaching the newbies how us kochi Jets are supposed to drink

chick magnet

....hannabalism?????? please explain!

....................

............ slur ................

Then at some stage during the night (god knows when) dave and keyon decided to get firework action

or something like that



flinty started trying to bury himself but he didnt want to lose his beer

no comment



great night.....definitely have to do it again before it gets colder here. oh yeah, and mika did come along, but she just didnt manage to get into any fotos.

A cheeky ride thru town

vid of mika and i riding a jinriki-shi (human drawn cart) through Yufuin, a town famous for shopping and its onsens

Escaping Typhoons, Kyushuu Trip to Oita Prefecture & Meeting Mika's Relatives (Part II)

Day 2 and the second day we stayed at Mika's Uncle'S, we headed to the lovely town/city (?) of Yufuin which is about a 40 minute drive out of Oita city. Its quite popular for its onsen like Beppu (but i didnt get to go there yet) and mostly for its long street full of all kinds of different shops. So pretty much if ur a woman, this place is for u. and it is hell for all boyfirends taking their girlfriends or going with a group with which the majority are missing a certain male bodypart.

We mostly just shopped (ie. window shop) through every store.......puff, pant , choke, deep breath. then mika and i decided to do something together (enter sarcasm) and ride on a Jinriki-sha (like a human-drawn cart that seats only two people). It was the first time i had done this and it was quite fun and lazy watching some some guy dragging my sorry ass around on a hot summer day.





There were plenty of foto ops and i even managed to take a small vid of it.

the ride was a bit expensive tho...ie.10 mins was about $30, or 30mins for $80. luckily we just got the cheeky 10min ride which was just enough and mikas aunt paid (yet again) for everything we wanted to do. The cart went around this lake and he showed us some temples and shit......great stuff.



i dont know whether this foto is cute, scary or plain weird. is she thinking shes gonna shoot that duck or stick her finger up the ducks..............

(right to left) Mikas Grandmother, Mika and Mika's grandmothers sister

On the Monday night we stayed at Mika's grandmothers place.

Then left the next morning to catch the ferry back to the inaka in Kochi.

Nice shot. KAWAII NE!!!


I bought a new shirt with which the kanji reads, "SAKEYOUJIN". translation is "alcoholic". perfect shirt for those nights out on the town/inaka.

This probably shouldnt have been the last foto because when we arrived at the ferry station, there was no ferry because MIka just happen to stuff up the reservation and booked the ferry for 3am thinking it was supposed to be 3pm. silly girl. so we ended up staying another night at mikas grandma's then got back into Kochi Wednesday evening. Definitely have to go back to more of Kyuushuu sometime soon.....hey! free accomodation....hehe.

Spot the Beer Monkey

Here is a vid of the monkeys feeding in their sanctuary in Mt Takasaki, Oita Prefecture, Kyuushuu, Japan. I wonder if u can find the beer monkey in amongst them all? hehe.... anyone want a monkey?

Escaping Typhoons, Kyushuu Trip to Oita Prefecture & Meeting Mika's Relatives (Part I)

The week before last, and after the mammoth summer sonic weekend, Mika and I yet again went on a small trek to Kyushu. I have never been to the island of Kyuushuu and thought it would be a good chance to go and also meet some of Mika's relatives (arent i a good boyfriend...hehe). Anyways.......... we almost never went because of the Typhoon scares in Kyuushuu when we left. We got up on the friday morning and the ferry people told us that they were still running so we decided to brave it head out. So we headed out in my car to the most western part of Shikoku and took the ferry (along with my car) to Saiki-shi in Oita Prefecture, about an hours drive away from Mikas family in Oita-Shi. But before we got to the ferry in Kochi, we were faced with......

all these lovely big waves which made our 3 hour trek across the ocean to Oita all the more enjoyable. Both Mika and I felt crook as a dog, and were so glad to get there and stand on solid, ground again. But once we got there, i was only raining a bit and there was no trace of there being a typhoon anywhere near us. So I spose that was pretty good luck.

Once we got to Mika's Uncle's place, we went out for yakiniku and beer with the family. This started the evil weekend of Mika's relatives constantly force-feeding beer and food into me. they are evil....hehe. just kidding, i was blown away by the hospitality of Japanese people when they go to visit relatives. Honestly, besides transport costs to Oita and back, i barely bought anything by myself, her aunt bought almost everything for us. CASHBACK!!! Hopefully though, if they came to visit us, i sure hope they dont expect us to pay for everything.......that would hurt my wallet very much.

OK, so this is a pic of Mika and I with Mika's cousins (top to bottom), Tomomi-chan and Momoko-chan. They were really cool!

Here are the drinkers of beer, and not that chuhai shit! Cheers. No seriously, the guy is Mika's mothers younger brother, Minoru and his wife (i forgot her name...what? Mika kept calling her aunt all the time!).

The chick in the middle is actually the older sister of the chick on the left

So here are some Kawaii (cute) fotos of some of the monkeys at Mt Takasaki where we went the day after we arrived in Kyuushuu. It is a huge sanctuary in the mountain just for the monkeys. There are like almost 800 of the dirty little buggers there.

This Monkeys saying, "OI! get your arse back here and...........

.....suck on my titties!" hehe

CHEESE