all by myself, don't wanna be, all by myself...

*Sobs* The visitors have *sniffle* gone, and now my flat feels so *whimpers* empty...

Yes, Madeleine and Jessica (the tourists) have gone to Tokyo for the last leg of their holiday, having finished their whirlwind tour of western Japan on Saturday. They didn't make it to Kurashiki on Thursday, but they did get to spent a nice amount of time at Okayama's famous Korakuen (one of the top three gardens in Japan- position never clarified) and enjoy the shopping opportunities available to them. I drove down in Janice Mark 2 to meet them around 8pm and what fun it was doing 100 kilometres an hour, feeling like your car is going to lift off the ground any moment and do a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-minus-the-wings over the edge of the viaduct...

So I got to Fiona's and the two of us headed to the city to meet the tourists and we allwent for curry in the CRED building (or cledo as one of the maps called it). The evening was a quiet one as we were all rather exhausted from forgetting to go to bed most nights, but we had to be up early for another trip.

On Friday morning we all woke up at around 8am in order to get the shinkansen to Hiroshima and start our sightseeing. Proving the Japanese are a friendly people (and possibly also deluded), a woman in our queue for the train told Jessica she'd seen her at Desperado's 2 weeks ago (oh no you didn't) but was very kind and tried to give us lots of information about getting around in Hiroshima even though we knew exactly where we were going (we'd already asked at the information desk). We were going to Miyajima and having dropped our bags at the 'otel, we took the longest tram journey ever where Jessica was slept on by a boy with greasy hair and scabies and the tram at one point became a train and started running on a train track (also a chitty-chitty-bang-bang-esque transformation).

Well of course it was pouring with rain by the time we'd gotten on the ferry to Miyajima, but it's such a beautiful place it doesn't matter. Madeleine's attempts to make friends with the deer that roam the island failed when 2 of them tried to eat her umbrella at the same time, and I took about 30 pictures of an egret as they seemed a lot tamer here than anywhere else in Japan. We all went photo crazy in fact with Madeleine and Jessica changing films regularly and me having to stop taking the same photos I've taken before. We all took photos of the wedding couple though. One of the comments was that they were the ugliest wedding party ever as their buck teeth seemed to take away the glamour from the traditional costume, but the fact that the bride and groom both had buck teeth made it all the more endearing. I just fear for the kids. Book the orthodontist now.

So we wandered a bit more round the island going to another series of temples (daisho-in?) and took more photos of the bhudda statues (which had been infiltrated by statues of cartoon characters such as Ampan man- the boy made of bread filled with red bean paste) before the rain got heavier. As we headed back to the ferry the tide was coming in and Miyajima's famous red gate was once again under water, and the mists blocked any view of mainland Japan, so we all have some very nice photographs.

In the evening we split up to maximise our shopping time in Hiroshima, then ate Hiroshima style okonomiyaki (Jessica much preferred it to Osaka style) and after a shattered Madeleine headed to the hotel to sleep, Jessica and I went bowling under the assumed names Kitty and Barry. Kitty won every game, although Barry did better than he ever has done before. He was proud.

Saturday was another rushed day as the tourists headed for the peace park and museum only to be waylayed by the allure of shopping, but they did make it and I left them to it (I've been there too many times) and came back to meet them for a walk around the park. After a lunch of udon we headed off to the station to get the shinkansen, and they had to change at Okayama where we said our sad goodbyes. I miss the tourists already!

So having gone to dinner with Fiona and Andrew (balinese restaurant, very nice) I set off for Kibichuo cho, right in the heart of Okayama, except I set off late and after half an hour's driving I could barely focus on the road signs, so I was quite concerned that I would miss my turning. D'oh! But all was OK, and as Rachel came to meet me I finally found out how to get the tape player in car to use my minidisc walkman correctly. Yay! So we convened at Adam's where Amy, Herbert and Bob were already enjoying themselves and chatted and joked until the small hours.

With maybe 4 and a half hours sleep under our belt we got up on Sunday ready for one of the top three festivals in the prefecture. Now a lot of foriegners in Japan love the festivals, but I find it slightly frustrating not having a clue what is going on. This one was good though, if worrying, as someone who knew Adam carted us off to eat a traditional Japanese festival lunch and did his best to get us to take part in carrying the portable shrines. They were, again, hugely friendly and warm people. So despite our tiredness we decided we would take part along with Herbert who had joined us. But as time went on it seemed like it was never going to happen, so we waited around enjoying the atmosphere and the noise and the hubbub and then had to get people back to make bus connections at three thirty, so we slyly wandered away. I feel slightly guilty, but not too much.

The journey home was fun, although I thought I was going to vomit after driving down a highway version of a spiral staircase, and having done some (more) shopping I finished the evening alone in my flat watching Bridget Jones' diary. I might watch it again tonight too. It's a good film after all. And I will be all by myself... *sobs* *wails* *whimpers*