Fukuyama

We went for a night to visit Auntie in Fukuyama. It’s a relatively quiet town, but it was fun nonetheless, especially as the Aunt keeps a traditional (-ish) Japanese house.

We took the “Setouchi Marine View” train, and paid extra to stay in the first class carriage. The train had two carriages, the normal and the first class. Everyone else was crammed in the normal carriage, and we had the first class to ourselves, which was fun. What was even more fun was the fact there was a glass door between the carriages, so they kept looking at us having fun.

The carriage had a very marine “cabin” feel to it, as the pictures can attest to.

We ate crunchie bars and onigiri for lunch on the train. Apparently there was meant to be a host-lady who served tea and offered biscuits and stuff, but she wasn’t in sight.

The train runs along the sealine, and some of the views are really amazing. I’m sure given some nice sun angles, some really spectacular photos could be gotten.

Being next to the water, there are a lot of ports and ships going in and out. This massive frame sticks out like…massively.

Travelling first class in the “cabin” had to merit some port window photos.

We slept in a traditional Japanese manner, which was actually pretty comfortable, and in a traditional japanese room. We normally sleep on beds at home (except for the brother who uses a tatami mat.)

We went to a Japanese Chinese restaurant, and that is something I’m not going to do again in a hurry. No offence, but the food wasn’t that great (or maybe it was the restaurant, but still…). I’ll stick to eating the oishii Japanese food =D

After that, I simply HAD to try the batting centre. We don’t have such places in Sydney (as far as I know), and baseball itself isn’t that popular in Australia. It was fun, and I’m sure with a few more pointers (and the machine getting recalibrated, quite a few shots either went wide or nearly took me out in the stomach) I’d be a lot better.

And now for the random toilet picture. This funky thing had the soap/water and drier all in one thing, in the three different steps you can see. It measured about 30cm long and saves a lot of space!

This place was next to the batting center and immediately I thought of the Simpsons and McDonalds. Word on the street is that Mo’s Burgers are pretty tasty, so I’ll have to try them out sometime.

It was only an overnight stay in Fukuyama, but the train ride, seeing Auntie and batting center were pretty awesome.