Happy Birthday Hannah

Managed to prise myself out of bed early to go fetch some fresh coffee and breakfast in bed for Hannah's birthday. Unfortunately no use of the surfboard prezzie as it is back in Guernsey.
Hired a car and got some locals tips of where to go for the best sushi. After about 1.5 hours driving we arrived in a gorgeous set of islands linked 5 bridges, including a gold one.
Found a nice area, but no sushi. Finally found a spot which was highly rated on google. It had a 20 mins wait to be seated. Must be good!
The food arrived to which Hannah said 'it doesn't look like the sushi from home'. I think she is used to cooked sushi. This was freshly uncooked 100% authentic stuff, which was (to Hannah's surprise) actually very tasty.
Drove to the viewing point at the top of the island. They have huge colourful spiders here. Was going to take the jungle route, but with the number of webs crossing the path we took the more trodden path.
Epic views all round.
Driving back to the hotel in Kumamoto we stopped at a few scenic points for sunset. As we pulled into the city, we took a detour to a temple on the hill.
Full moon over the night city scape, so took some photos till the camera died.
Finally parked up the car and had a beer and pizza before heading back to the hotel.

Learning points from holiday so far:
1) Buy a data sim card on day 1, doing stuff between wifi points is a faff.
2) Pack less stuff. Pack what you think you need, then half it. After walking for 1km, 18kg gets heavy.
3) Hire a car early, as you can get out and about seeing the countryside faster.
4) Hannah's point. 9 months is gonna be a looooong time.
5) Japan is awsome. Lots of things are in English. The locals are super friendly and smiley. They will always try to help. There is not much of a culture shock and it is very easy to navigate and get around.Read more