Tomonoura

The 19th of September was Respect for the Elderly Day and as this was a national holiday in Japan, Dustin had the day off. We decided to head south to Tomonoura, the port district of Fukuyama. It was about a 15 minute bus ride from downtown, and about as touristy as I have seen Fukuyama get, which is really not that touristy at all. There were no big crowds, only a few little souvenir shops, and only one street food vendor.

The district is pretty small with narrow, winding, stone paved streets and beautiful old Edo period buildings. 

There were old storehouses from the 1800's that you could wander around in, and quite a few little shops selling yomeishu, a sweet herbal liqueur which is supposed to promote a long life. 

Hayao Miyazaki rented a house here in 2005 and based the town in Ponyo off of Tomonoura. Every souvenir shop had a few cute Ponyo themed items for sale which took a lot of self restraint not to buy. 

We went to a quaint udon shop for lunch. The man who owned it told us that Miyazaki had used the goldfish in his courtyard for his original sketches of Ponyo. Theo loved his onigiri. 

William charmed his way into the owner's heart and by the end of our meal he asked us if he could take a picture for his "wall of good customers".  Here was the outcome:

The old stone lighthouse was made to resemble the lanterns used at temples.

Tomonoura is on the Seto Inland Sea with lush little tree covered islands scattered here and there. 

From the harbor you can see tiny Benten Island with its pagoda and torii gate. 

Directly behind Benten Island is Sensuijima, a much larger island, with a little hotel, hot springs, and campground. There is a ferry that takes you from Tomonoura to Sensujima which is made to look like an old sailing ship. Theo was so happy about riding on the "pirate ship".

There was a really nice beach near the campground and Theo was ecstatic to take a dip in the ocean. The water in this area is extremely calm and there were hardly any waves. It was a warmish, over cast day and the water was really pleasant, so Theo spent almost 2 hours enjoying himself in the water. 

Hopefully we can find a free weekend sometime soon to come back and camp. It looked like there were a few trails to wander and beaches to discover on the island and best of all, very few tourists!

More Surprises

As of yet, we have no idea where we will be living in Japan. There are many aspects of applying for the JET Programme that require you to be an insanely patient and laid back person, and this is certainly one of them. Not many people I know would be excited about signing themselves and their family up for a life in an absolutely unknown location in a foreign country. Add to that the 7 month applications time and that you only have a rough guess of what your housing will be like is enough to turn most people off. Though we are certainly not the most patient of people, no one could accuse of not being laid back. The unknown just makes this all the more exciting.

We have been told that we will find out our placement in May. Basically, the government works with various contracting organizations to find best where to place you. On our applications we were asked to put three preferences, but they make no promises that you will actually get placed in one of the areas that you requested. Picking our three preferences turned out to be really informative. After hours and days of googling all of the different regions and prefectures of Japan, we were able to see which had geography, climate, foods, etc. which appealed to us the most. We finally decided on Miyazaki, Kochi, and Okayama Prefectures. They are all in the southern-ish part of Japan since we really don't want to have to deal with cold winters anymore. We also specified that we want to live in a rural community. We feel that living in a small town or village will force us to learn Japanese faster, allow us to experience more traditional Japanese culture, become part of the community, and have greater access to the outdoors. We will be anxiously waiting until sometime in May when they decide where to place us.