In Rosanna, thinking of Tokyo

I'm laying on the couch, which is something I do so well I should have a doctorate in it, and trying to figure out which, if any of the myriad of trip journal apps are worth looking at. I just loaded Geospike because it seemed OK.

After loading it I discovered  that it costs $7.49 to be able to share it friends, or simply people of your choosing, as opposed to making entirely public. 

FAIL! Uninstall.

I will keep looking and shared findings as I go.

A Preamble

As is with most couples, I imagine, talk of time and holidays to be spent together can reveal lots of interesting and pleasing surprises.
Watching and hearing of other peoples holidays has only increased our desire to travel to places yet to be enjoyed.

Our next trip takes us to Japan, from Tokyo to Hiroshima and a few places in between.

Why Japan? 

Tiziana - when she was 16 she applied for a Rotary Exchange scholarship and her favoured country was Japan. The Philippines was second on her list. 
Yes, predictably, Japan was #1 on every other students favourite list of preferred country and Tiziana eventually spent her 16th year in Orequieta City on Mindanao.

During that year of 1974 Tiziana made many life long friends and in the April of 2012 we went to their 38th Class of '74 reunion. 

It is an event in which all past years contribute to a bi-annual event that is full of Filipino good cheer. 

Ex-students return from all over the world to eat, drink and entertain all comers for two weeks. 

The year we were there they were sponsored by Tanduay Rhum. 

Let me just say that the rum flowed freely and I enjoyed a fair amount. 

If the truth be known I drank maybe just one, or two, too many. 

In fact, I fell down a pothole on the way home and woke up with a hangover so big that only a "hair(ball) of the dog" got rid of it.

When Japan was mentioned during one of those "Where should we go next?" Tiziana simply said "Yes, yes and yes!" 

Marino - In the mid 90's we had a fledgling car exporting business which was brought to a sudden end, in major part, by the Kobe earthquake. 

During the time I spent there I had little time to enjoy Japan as it was all business, business and more business. 

My return to Japan 20 years later will be more like a first visit than a return.

I too took no convincing that going to Japan would be a great idea.

To those who know me you would be brutally aware that I enjoy a good feed.

A good feed for me, many days of the week, looks like this ..... 

Although I love food I would not consider myself an aficionado but I have eaten a lot of ramen from many Melbourne eateries. 

They have ranged from the truly memorable to the tragically awful.

The places I go to a lot are Kokoro Ramen in Lonsdale Street, Fukuryu Ramen in Corrs Lane in Chinatown as well as The Little Ramen Bar in Little Bourke Street. 

These are the sort of place we Melburnians can draw parallels to the ones seen in famous movies and documentaries such as Tampopo (translated means Dandelion) and the more recent God of Ramen, which we saw at the recent Japanese Film Festival.

Here is where we will go to pay tribute to Kazuo Yamagishi ("The God of Ramen") when we are in Tokyo. 

You would be justified in thinking that we will be going to Japan to train for "Best 'Jabba the Hutt' Impersonator 2015" via a diet of solely ramen. 

That just isn't so. 

We will also be eating gyoza, okonomiyaki, sashimi, tempura, yakitori as well as as many new foods as we can find and drinking our fair share of their wonderful beers, nihonshu (10-20% alcohol rice wine aka as sake outside of Japan), jizake (local rice wines) and shochu (20-40% alcohol distilled spirit commonly made from rice, sweet potatoes, wheat and/or sugar cane and usually served mixed with water and ice, fruit juice and sparkling water, or oolong tea).

Tiziana, much to her credit, has been learning and practicing Japanese as if we would starve and be destitute if she were not able to communicate in their language. 

Thankfully, I am surrounded with diligent, gorgeous, language loving and high achieving women. Lucky me. Here are the two main ones.

I must mention, at this point, that Georgia (on the left) left for South East Asia this week just two days after her 21st, for about one year, or so the plan is at this point.

We are plan to visit some of the many important temples and monuments as well as the Yamato Museum in Kure and the Yokota Museum in the Gunma Prefecture.

    

A lot of planning fun, a lot to do and see and a bunch of new experiences is what this trip is about and I'm sure we will achieve it all.

Come and read our blog after Easter and share in our travels.

  

Arrrrr ...... me hearties
We hope y've had y'rselves a
Happy Easter!!