Day 3 in Japan

June 5, Monday – I have breakfast with my host father at a coffee shop at 8.30am. He ordered sandwich sets for both of us. At 9.15am, we went to my host mother’s shop as it was still early for the next gathering at City Hall. It was a lovely shop with a small garden. I like the atmosphere there. At 9.45am, we arrived at the City Hall for the meeting with the Mayor. It was a very formal occassion. We were on TV and interviewed by newspapers! We even get to visit some of the meeting rooms for EXCOs. At around 12pm, we had lunch at the City Hall’s restaurant. I ordered a small bowl of “tori udon” (chicken noodle).

At 1pm, we visited a vinegar factory. The factory is located beside a river bank. We watched a video clip introducing vinegar and the factory. We had a small tour around the factory after that. It was hard understanding all the explanations in Japanese. At around 3pm, we visited a “sake” (rice wine) factory located nearby. These 2 factories are like brothers, related to each other. I bought a small bottle of unknown “sake” at 390 yen, approximately RM12. At around 3.50pm, we departed to the workplace of the clay dolls by using the Kinuura undersea tunnel. Currently, he is the only person doing it. He will only work when there are orders. Normally there are a lot of orders as festivals are approaching. The dolls are not cheap. After the visit, we had a small visit to Mr Ogasawara’s house before visiting a Japanese dolls shop. The cheapest doll cost 6,000 yen. Normally the dolls come in a pair.

At around 6pm, my host father brought me to an electronic shop to get a pair of batteries before going for our grocery shopping. We had “omuraisu” (egg rice) for dinner. It is very much like “nasi pataya” in Malaysia. I helped out in the preparation as well.