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Published: September 3rd 2008
Moving swifly on. It was time to reunite the mcgrath family in a new setting and solidify the bonds once again.
Having burned his way over X amount of miles from London to Mongolia in not much more than a glorified banger, the brother Tom was planning to make a suprising vist to me in Japan after a brief detour to China.
Arriving looking a little worse for wear and certainly different to how I remembered him ( and him possibly to me ) I greeted my brother at Kobe port, having just spent 2 days on a ferry from Shanghai.
From there, we downed a quick sichi roll and set off up north to reunite with Denzel, and take in what the Japanese seem to do so well in the summer. Fireworks.
It was fair to say, however, that being slightly hungover the prospect of riding on a train all day and to be embedded in crowds for an evening didn't thrill him to the bones, but nonethless we set off and made it to Fukui prefecture by sundown, and for what was easily the best fireworks diplay I have ever seen.
From there we
colours
fukui fireworks display
headed on to Kanazawa prefecture and spent the night and the day wandering around the shops and beaches, and sampling some great food too.
The next challenge lay ahead, however, and I had scheduled in a climb of the nearby mountain of Tsurugi Dake, a mountain famed all over Japan for being the most diffiuclt and harrowing to climb.
Why? One might ask, had I chosen this mountain. And it would be a fair questrion to ask, and the answer lies around the personal wish to accomplish this mightiest of rocks, but I had not really thought through the consequences of taking him up the mountain.
To cut a long story short it was tough, cold and the conditions were cold, wet and dangerous. I learned a few important lessons on mountain climbing over those days.
But we did it and reached the top after camping out on a mountain the following day.
Following this we headed to Nagoya to spend the night halfway to Osaka, to which it was my first time and I was suprised to see how large a city it was.
Next I had arranged to meet a friend back in
Kobe and so I sent Tom off, but feeling slightly guilty, to Osaka. I had no need to fear, however, as the following day he emerged with a smile on his face having opted to spend the day at Universal Studios Japan, and proclaiming it to be one of the happiest days of his life, so everyone was happy.
Next we had a day to kill before heading to Tokyo and so we spent a day in Kyoto looking at temples and the like......
A night bus to Tokyo later and we emerged in Shibuya and spent a great night out in the Roppongi area.
A fitting end to my time in Japan, we spent a day around Tokyo and the next day sped across the country on a bullet train to Fukuoka city.
As we boarded the ferry to Busan, Korea I crossed the gap slowly and hessitantly from the dock to the boat, and watched from the window as the last island dissappeared from sight.
Goodbye Japan. What can I say. Its not the last you'll see of me...
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