Yame

We left the hotel at around 8AM to catch our flight to Fukuoka from where caught the bus to Yame (Nozomi's home-town). Nozomi's dad met us at the bus stand and we set off for a spot of lunch at one of Nozomi's favourite restaurants for a tasty burger. Then it was back to Nozomi's parent's house in Yame. It was great to see everyone again. My Japanese comprehension was a bit better than the last time we visited, although I have still got a long way to go to understand the Kyuushuu dialect with ease. (Imagine a Cornish or Glaswegian accent for a non-native English speaker and you get the idea!) In the evening we were treated to yakiniku by Nozomi's parents at a local restaurant where we met two of Nozomi's cousins, Na-chan and Miki-chan. We had a very relaxing evening, and the food was absolutely divine. The nama beer was very good too :-)

Yame is an interesting place, which is probably typical of rural Japan. Houses, farmland, shops and retail parks are not really separated as they are in the UK. Thus you can walk from say your front door, past a local small holding where crops are being grown, and then on to a huge retail store within the space of a few minutes. Houses are of all shapes, ages and sizes and there is not the bland uniformity seen in so many housing estates in the UK. There also seem to be a lot more Ma-and-Pop type shops, and whilst lots of chain stores do exist, there is much more local variety when shopping or eating out. It's very hickledy-pickledy (in a good way). For me, this is much preferable to a typical British town layout where the main shops and farmland are generally much removed from the places where people actually live and wherever you go all the shops and restaurants are the same.