Day 8 in Japan - Akashi City Gym

Today, had a sleep in until 9:30, and then got a lot of Jelenas data analysed and ordered to send to her. About lunchtime, Sam and I headed out to explore Akashi. The train system was surprisingly easy when I had my ticket and kanji expert Sam with me, and the train ride to Akashi (2 stops East of Okubo-eki) was only 11 minutes. We found a 100 yen store as soon as we left the train station at Akashi, and quickly followed up our snack purchases with a trip to an internet café – “space create” internet and comic café. It was great to get some contact with home at our leisure, and we spent about an hour and a half sending messages home, and I got to put all of my diary entries up on my half arsed blog. After all the slothing around with corn chips and chocolate (and free drinks) in the morning,w e decided it was definitely time for some walking in the afternoon, so we wandered through the Akashi Fish markets, and saw all of the Akashiyaki places (although it was too hot to eat the local specialty today – next time we’ll head in for some octopus balls and broth like good tourists). We found another arcade in the middle of the markets, and Sam was much happier to see at least 2 fighting games (KoF) in the midst of the pachinko-style games. We kept walking south from the fish markets until we hit the coast at the Taco Ferry Mae station. We saw the big ferry going to Awaji Island covered with a huge octopus painted on the side (Taco = tako = octopus), and followed the coast east towards the huge bridge. Finally got a good vantage point to take some photos of the Akashi-Awaji bridge, and appreciate the enormity of it. We both felt a little sunburnt, and so we only sat with all the fishing locals on the side of the ocean for about 10 minutes before heading onwards. Had our first experiences with local stray cats on the walk back towards the station again – cats here look a little different to ones at home. Their faces are a slightly different shape, and they make a slightly different noise. Japanese think that the noise that cats make is “nyaa”, and to be honest, the cats did make a noise more like “nyaa” than “miaow”. We have definitely found the same with dog noises too – there is a dog near our house somewhere that definitely makes barking noises that sound like “wan wan”, which is the noise that Japanese associate with dogs. Sam and I both laughed a lot when we first realised that. Anyway, we got back to the train station with another vending machine stop and another 100 yen store (hyaku-en store) raid and managed to negotiate ourselves onto a train heading the right way. Even though we were only 2 stops away, the train we caught actually terminated at Nishi-Akashi (West Akashi) train station, so we still had to swap trains. Cooked our first real meal in Japan tonight – pretty unadventurous pork loins with garlic bok choy, although we did season the pork with “magic salt”. Delicious (oishii)! Sam was super happy to hear from his Mum tonight, and I got to talk to my Mum as well.

Food highlights of the day: for Sam, the pork and bok choy for dinner and Almond M&Ms; for me, chocolate with New York cheesecake filling (wasn’t actually that delicious, but was definitely a new taste).
Mon