forever APE: ukari to the rescue

on the trip from osaka to kyoto, to meet with my old friend from university, yukari, i lost both members of my travel team. elise wasn't feeling great, and wanted a nights rest in our relaxing apartment in tokyo, and nj decided to go it alone in kyoto for the night. that left just me to meet up with yukari, some twenty minutes out of kyoto. i was greeted by a smiling yukari, and although i hadn't seen her for six years, it felt like yesterday. her lovely husband kim, and her adorable little boy, junior, were waiting for me in the carpark at the station. they took me out for lunch, and then took me to a museum all about lake biwa. i'll try not to be all adam about this, but lake biwa has been around for four million years, and has played an important part in japan's cultural history. the best part of the museum, was the aquarium with heaps of fish native to the lake. we were lucky enough to see feeding time, and some seriously weird looking fishies were singing very odd songs for their supper. yukari then introduced me japan's equivalent of australia's two dollar shop, where everything in the store costs one hundred and five yen. not too sure how they arrived at one hundred and five, but there was lots of stuff. i have to tip my lid to the hospitality of yukari, kim and junior, because they made me feel right at home from the start. my other friends from university, ben and nicole, had told me how lovely yukari had been to them, as they were in japan just a week before me, but it had to be experienced to be believed. thank you so much yukari.

elise caught the shinkansen down to meet us the next day, and kim had planned a day out in nagahama for us all. we went to a beautiful old style village, that had glass blowing, and figurine museum (sorry ben...), and japan's biggest kalideskope. we all had such a great day shopping, and walking around, it was really special. the figurine museum that kim and i went to, was amazing. they had tiny little models of everything from apes, to sea creatures, to all sorts of japanese curiosities. they even had lots of models of godzilla through the years, so you got know the real godzilla. it was like watching the olsen twins grow up on "full house". kim then took elise and i to a really cool shop on the way home, that had toys, clothes, cds, dvds, and everything else you could poke a chopstick at. the store was massive, and it was so cool, thank you kim.