Going home to Hofu, by Greg

This post is brought to you by Dr Greg Shields!
From Osaka we caught the bullet train to Yamaguchi, and then a local train to the modest town of Hofu where I had spent my time as a high school student on exchange. It had been my first overseas trip, much anticipated, and remains the most memorable experience of my life to this date. Going back to Hofu, which I have done twice before (once with Jade in 2003) is an exercise in nostalgia and remembrance of a very happy and formative experience.

This was a disturbing sign in the toilet. Especially the final message...where am I going?!

This is the holy grail for psychiatrists

We met my host mother, Fujiko, at the station and she drove us back to the traditional wooden house that has been the family home for over 70 years (Papa himself was born here). We greeted Papa warmly and introduced ourselves to Noah, the incessantly yapping daschund.

Mamma & Papa with Greg at one of Mamma's amazing dinners

After a few sakes...Yasuhiro, his new wife and us!

We spent our time there relaxing, catching up with the family, eating our way around homely Japanese cuisine, and enjoying the familiarity of my second childhood home. My host sister Mayumi (who had been in the US while I was at school in Hofu) arrived from Miyajima for one night, and Yasuhiro (my host brother) visited for a night with his new wife. We also visited the Okamotos for an afternoon; they were another host family from the school and had been very kind to us in the past. Takumaru, their son, visited with his wife and new baby daughter, who kept Mrs Okamotos and youngest daughter Azusa transfixed. They own an umbrella factory and, as is now customary, we did not fail to leave without one of their very good umbrellas each.

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The other highlight of Hofu was hiring electric bicycles and cycling around the outskirts of town, visitng shrines and the small fish market along the way. We bought unagi for dinner and stopped at an incongruent 'Hula Cafe' (Hawaiian themed!) for lunch.

Amazing electric bikes! Its like flying!

During the week there we also took an overnight trip to visit two historical towns. Hagi is famous for its pottery throughout Japan, and we enjoyed exploring its quaint streets and old workshops. The same day we went to Tsuwano where we stayed in a small inn, slightly shabby, but enjoyed an immense teishoku dinner of very high quality accompanied by copious sake. The following day we spend exploring Tsuwano, which is an incredibly well preserved historical town with traditional cobbled streets, houses dating back to the 1500s, and deep guttering with carp swimming. Tsuwano held particularly good memories for me as it was on a school excursion there that I had first seen snow, so many winters ago. We wandered around the town, delighted to see groups of older Japanese couples dressed in kimono. When I asked what the occasion was for their dressing up, they replied 'just for fun', which I thought to be about the best answer they could have.

We returned to Hofu that night and saw out the rest of the week there, and left on the same train: Jade to Tokyo and myself to Osaka, heading for a job interview in London.

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Join me for my Tokyo adventures in a week's time!
Also update we are currently in Iceland but I promise to keep posting all our adventures despite our big adventure coming to an end.