Day 8

Last nights dinner lived up to expectation. We were all dressed in our yutaka and had our own private dinning room. The room was laid out in the Japanese style where you sat on the floor with a small table in front of you for your food. We were then served our usual 10 courses by two wonderful ladies dressed in kimono. The food was excellent, with fish being the main ingredient, but we did get some beef on one course as well.





Today we travelled by bus to the Iya Valley. It was a very scenic journey of about a hour to get to a place on a step gorge where we took a boat ride for half an hour or so. The water was quite low so we were unable to go far. After the winter rains the river height rises by many metres and they have white water rafting on the river.





The valley has just started to change colour, being a little behind the UK, so we did not get the bright and vivid reds we were expecting amongst the bamboo and pine. It was a shame that the autumn appears to be a little late here, but the scenery was wonderful anyway.



We shared our boat with four young Japanese students, whose English was very good. They liked having their photo taken and for some reason thought I looked like Bruce Willis! We had a group picture with them when we got off and they wanted to become 'friends' on Facebook. Just shows the modern world is very small and the youth of most countries around the world love to socialize via modern media.



From there we had a brief stop at a rock /gem museum which was quite interesting. It had gems and other exhibits from around the world. Being Halloween it also had some funny models of demons etc from Japanese folklore. No pictures were allowed unfortunately.




We then stopped for some lunch in a great place overlooking another steep valley gorge. Clare had shrimp tempura, whilst I had beef curry. Both were excellent. We then headed on a little further to see and walk across a vine bridge. It was great fun and the colours down by the river were lovely. Some of the group didn't like the open slatted bridge and its swaying movement, but most made it across alright. Certainly better than the women in stiletto leopard print shoes!!!








There were some food stalls lining the route to the bridge selling local salted river fish cooked over a charcoal fire - a quick and delicious snack!



Our last stop was to an old thatched house belonging to an army colonel. It was about a hundred years old and stuffed with a real eclectic mix of objects he had collected over his life time. This included china, pictures, old money, medals, stuffed birds and lots more. There was a fire kept smouldering in the fire pit, the smoke from which help to keep pests away from the thatch. But it also gave the house a really ancient feel as the smoke drifted through the house.



In the yard of house was a dog kennel with a bitch and her very young puppy. They were adorable and had lot of fuss from the group!



We then returned to our hotel where we had some onsen time before another sumptuous dinner. Clare had lots of seafood including prawns, squid, puffer fish, conger eel and lots more. The non vegetarians had exceptional beef as well as the puffer fish and prawn tempura. They only told us afterwards that unless prepared correctly the puffer is fatally poisonous - luckily we all lived to move on the following day!