Day 19: Yamaguchi

[post of Sunday 26^th of August 2012]

Today is our first day of real rest. To celebrate, we wake up early, at something like 7am, but we stay in the bed a bit more. We’re really happy for being able to stay in Josh’s house for a couple of days, above all because him and his family will shows around and lead us to the discovery of Yamaguchi.

It’s a fantastic city, enclosed in a valley surrounded by high mountains. Although it’s the capital of the prefecture, we feel in an ultra-modern city, like those we crossed in the North of Kyushu. Yamaguchi conserves the magic of tradition thou, and that’s well present in its architecture with houses in the perfect size for just one family...  and of course, there are its trees perfectly cut in lovely shapes.

In origin, we had planned to walk around with the whole family, but one of the girls misbehaved and she’s not allowed to go out, so she stays in with her mum. Therefore, we go around with Josh and the quieter girl of the twins (or, better said, the one less troublemaker). First, we go to the church entitled to Saint Francis Javier, which is designed in a very ugly postmodern style. Then Josh brings us to the restaurant where some Japanese clans arranged the complot against the Meiji Restoration. A scary story, but we recover.

At midday we go to an authentic Japanese restaurant, one of these place to which we cannot even go on our own because we don’t understand the menu… and even we did, we won’t have a clue about what is what!

In the afternoon we visit one of the most beautiful pagodas in Japan, or at least that’s what Josh tells us. The touristic guides agree and tell us that Yamaguchi’s pagoda is one of the three most beautiful in Japan, although they don’t specify which ones are the other two.

Then, we go on with complots. We continue talking about the well-known crisis concerning politics, economy, good and bad habits… and brotherhoods. In the detail, we talk about the fact that Yamaguchi is sister-city with Pamplona [in Spain], where Ainhoa is from. Every year there is a “Spanish festival” here, one that, in theory, recreates the ‘Pamplona atmosphere’… which in Japanese translates into paella [typical plate with rice, vegetable, meat, and fish], flamenco [typical Spanish folk dance]. Josh thinks this should change into something more ‘authentic’, more ‘Pamplonese’ or, at least, to show something else of the Spanish culture beside the paella and the flamenco. If him and his friends keep pushing in that direction, we would have to learn much more Japanese for the future!

It gets late, and it’s time to go home. Gabriel cooks a tortilla of potatoes [Spanish dish, mainly with eggs and potatoes, although it may come in many different varieties] for dinner, which is a nice accompaniment for the Japanese spaghetti with pesto of today.

Once the girls go to bed, we adult have a proper chat… talking about movies and cartoons. Thanks to YouTube, we can show to Josh and his wife the cartoons we’ve grown up with: Dragon Ball, Heidi, The Zodiac Knights… and with these good feelings we go to bed.