Golden Week
A welcome break from a new school and relief from Mark's killer commute came in the form of Golden Week. Golden week is a string of public holidays over 7 days which includes Children's Day (guess who made the most of that!) We were warned not to travel, although everyone else we know did. Having only just moved to our permanent abode we decided to stay put and enjoy the simple things in life, like sushi :) We set up a veggie patch and bought a washing pole. We ventured out on what felt like a wild goose chase to find a beach, and ended up with thousands of others, just out of Nagoya looking for something, but what? A Japanese lady slipped me a ticket, whispering 'secreto' ....ooo. Now this is getting exciting! Trying not to stand out with my secreto ticket we joined the throngs of happy Japanese wading through the shallows to find a smorgasbord of shells and infantile fish. The Japanese were collecting kilos and kilos of a small pippi like shells. Although tempted, our recent experience of eating sandy seafood from the Coorong was enough to make our teeth grind on the spot, so instead we emerged home with 8 petto hermit crabboes, for a tanko, not for the potto.
We ventured off to Inuyama in search of the monkeys. With the development of my acting skills (not my Japanese) we were directed cross country, over wooded peaks and past a shinto shrine with ancient cemetery to the Japan Monkey Park. But where were the monkeys? Guess who didn't get passed the amusement rides and never saw the monkeys? With the kids practising a bit of Japanese independence, Mark and I had a peaceful time looking at all 700 monkeys (note: the poor lonely gorilla would be welcome at Melbourne Zoo-I'm sure) Our own monkeys had a lovely time too spinning, running, queuing and riding on as many amusement rides as they could.
