The craziness of the past few weeks continued as I barely had time to recover from Tokyo before I was off again to Nagoya. My close friend Junko and I had been pretty stressed out during the school term and as we hadn't seen each other for a while, decided to go on a holiday to a few beautiful places near Nagoya to catch up and relax. I shot up to Nagoya on the shinkansen and met her early Friday evening, and we grabbed a quick dinner at the famous Yamachan in Nagoya city. They do all kinds of interesting foods, including some amazing Nagoya foods. I don't know why Nagoya food is so different, but it is, and most of it is pretty delicious.

After dinner we caught the train up to Inuyama, a fairly unknown little inaka place up in the mountains towards Gifu prefecture. We stayed at the Youth Hostel there, but by the time we got there it was dark and we were so tired that we ended up just going straight to sleep, hehe. On Saturday we headed out to the Inuyama Ayumatsuri, which celebrates the little fish that the locals use trained cormorants to catch. We had to walk along a dangerous road with no footpath to get there, which was quite an adventure. The festival itself was small but interesting. We got to eat one of the famous Ayu, and also checked out the horrible Momotaro shrine that was there. It really was tacky, hehe, with lots of brightly painted demon and Momotaro statues everywhere. Why Momotaro was even in Inuyama I don't know, as he originates from Okayama prefecture.

Anyway, after that we wandered through a park and down to the river for a while, but it was so oppressively hot and humid that we had to retreat to a cafe and have some kakigori (shaved ice dessert), hehe. After that we walked all the way to Inuyama-jou, a beautiful castle high on a cliff overlooking the river. From there we grabbed a late lunch and caught the train to Okazaki, our final destination. I don't know what Okazaki is famous for but on Saturday night it had an enormous firework festival with over 20,000 fireworks over 2 hours. Being a summer festival, there were of course thousands of people around, many dressed in yukata. Junko and I had brought ours with us and so we wore them out. Junko looked amazing in hers and was even able to do her own obi. I, the heathen gaijin I am, hehe, had forgotten how to tie my obi so had to get on the computer in the hotel reception and find some instructions. With Junko's help I was eventually able to get it done ok.

On the way to the festival we grabbed some food and beer at a konbini and then some yakitori from a handy stall just outside the main festival area. The woman at the stall saw me and told Junko I looked very handsome and that she was lucky, haha. It never ceases to amaze me what Japanese people will assume (that I can't speak Japanese and that I'm the boyfriend of any girl I am with) and say. Anyway, I gladly took the compliment :P From there we very enjoyed ridiculous amounts of fireworks until the festival ended around 9pm. After that we went back to the hotel to shower and recover - the yukatas are very warm despite being summer garments, and we were both very tired and probably a bit dehydrated from a day of walking around in the sun. About 10:30 we went down to a yakitori izakaya and grabbed a bit more food before heading back to the hotel and crashing out about midnight.

We were both really tired and didn't wake up until nearly 9:30, just enough time to shower before checking out of the hotel. We were still tired so we decided to head straight back to Nagoya and head home from there. I think I got on the train home at around noon and was back in Ako by 2pm, so not too bad at all! Nagoya is actually quite convenient, by shinkansen anyway hehe. Despite being already tired and the weekend being tiring as well, it was a lot of fun and I had a really good time. Junko is one of the few really good Japanese friends I've made (her nearly perfect English helped a lot here!) so I was very happy to spend some time hanging out with her. Hopefully I can see her again soon :)