Early May in Japan brings Golden Week, an infamous string of national holidays during which the entire country grinds to a halt. Almost everyone is on holiday during this time, and as a result it's one of the few times of year when Japanese people (especially families) can actually travel and have a real holiday. So naturally, it's a logistical and financial nightmare. Roads, trains, shops and restaurants alike are jam packed and the price of everything goes up. Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan. So this year again I decided to stay local and avoid the crowds and prices. Which actually turned out to be a bloody good plan :)

On the Friday night before the madness started I caught up with Keisuke, Amanda and Misa for dinner at an izakaya in Akashi. Misa and Keisuke were going away during Golden Week, so we'd all decided to catch up before it actually started. It was a good night, but I was extremely tired (as always :/) and try as I might I just couldn't keep up with their Japanese, especially when Keisuke's friend (who speaks no English) arrived. I was a bit upset about it and left as soon as we finished up at the izakaya, even though they were kicking on to karaoke.

Saturday was a good day as the Perth group (Amanda, Emma, Matt, Goran, Suzie and Aimee) all came over to Ako for the day. We bought up supplies at Jusco and caught the bus down to the seaside park, where we ate, drank, played frisbee and cards and generally had a great time. Around 4pm we climbed the smallest mountain in Hyogo Prefecture (about 20 metres, haha) and mucked around on the top for a while before catching a taxi back to my place. We all pitched in to cook takoyaki, okonomiyaki and yakisoba for dinner, and talked and played cards until around midnight.

The next day I shot off to Kobe to meet Joe and Yuko for some more rock climbing. I had a really good time and solidified what I'd learnt last time as well as learning some new things. I felt a bit more comfortable in the gym too, as I'd seen a lot of the people there before. Some of them smiled at me as I walked in / came down from climbs (falling more often than not, hehe) which was really supportive. After really struggling to get into the groove of talking Japanese and making some silly mistakes (I was tired and had been talking to Joe in English for an hour on the train beforehand), I also got talking to Akisa and Kawabata-san, the people at the front desk. They're really cool people, and they told me that there are some rock climbing courses at Mount Rokko, near Himeji. Wheee!

I finished up at the gym at around 4pm when I tore a chunk of skin off one of my fingers after losing grip on a rock, but Joe and Yuko managed to keep going until around 5pm. We grabbed a quick dinner and then Joe and I headed back to Ako to meet Nate and Miho to start our Banshu Ako Golden Week :D We'd all decided to keep it local, and as so many of our friends were returning to Ako/near Ako, we all decided to stay too. So we met everyone at Minato-ya and over okonomiyaki and beer Nate told us the plans.

That night they all crashed at my place and then on Monday morning we bought heaps of BBQ food in preparation to go camping at Maruyamu beach. Ewan had already set up a tent for us there on Sunday, and Joe borrowed a bike from our new friend Hiro, so all we had to do was pack our bags and ride. It was a lovely ride too, as it took us through the beautiful Misaki area and then out to a long, flat path that went along the ocean. Unfortunately that path ran out before I thought it would, so we ended up having to carry our bikes about 100m up a fairly steep set of stairs to the road (whoops!), but we came out directly across from Kanpo-yu, an onsen. None of us had showered and we'd gotten hot on our ride, so we were all anxious to get clean. And it was a damn good onsen! :D