Screams and thrills at Universal Studios

 The hardest part was working out which ride was the best. Every-one had great fun and lots of rides.

We traveled by train to the studios and spent most of the day trying out eh rides and spectacular shows.

Thank-you to Sayaka and Sasaki san for helping us negotiate the public transport system. We didn't lose any one and feel like old hands at moving across large cities.

This is our last post so
Sayonara until we meet up in Darwin.

The Farewell Assembly

We have been fare-welled with a great Assembly.  Nikki presented a terrific speech with a number of funny jokes. Followed by Mr Pizzutto who took on a formal handover speech for his return next year.

Thank-you

Our time at Kamitonda has been a transformational experience and we have many people to thank for making our visit so successful and safe. It is impossible to name every-one as the teachers, staff and students of Kamitonda have so friendly, kind and welcoming. 

Several people do need to be mentioned:
Ben the Australian teacher who teaches English at the Elementary schools in this area.
Thank -you Ben for interpreting and translating for us. It was a full on job by itself but you also taught us about the Hiragana script and made the whole trip fun. 

Koumori Kocho sensei, the principal of Kamitonda Junior High School.
Koumori Kocho met us every-day and made time in his busy schedule to inform us about what was happening each day and take us to the different places we visited.

 





 

Monday - our final day

We have reached the end of our visit and are exhausted after a big weekend of touring and visiting wonderful places on Sunday with our host families.

Many met up at Adventure World and some went fishing but every-one had a great time.

How do you like your tuna?

 In  most countries when you see a crowd and cheers of  admiration you would assume a famous celebrity was passing by ... but not in Japan.

Here it is the carving of the tuna. And it was an impressive sight with the head being disposed of in seconds.

Prime pieces of tuna were selling for up to $39 for a sliver that might have been about 100 -150 g.

Wakayama Castle

 


Just imagine the most romantic garden with flowers, massive rocks and a curved bridge arching over water dominated by the brooding castle fortress  and you might be close to describing Wakayama castle.  An amazing palace with massive defensive walls high on a hill overlooking Wakayama Bay.

To all those fans of Ninja and martial arts films this is the setting  you dream of. 

Inside is a small museum containing many original pieces of calligraphy and armour.

We even met some modern day ninjas along the 
way although they were so friendly they were definitely not the bad guys.

Visiting the High school

After our calligraphy lesson we walked over to the Senior High school and met with the Principal who took us around to see their impressive hospital facilities. They have the capacity to convert to a hospital in an emergency.

Later we watched some karate demonstrations and played touch rugby with the team.