Dave Riley

The house that Shigeo built

The house we stayed at Rie's parents house was designed and built by Shigeo Saito, Rie's Father. It's got 2 main floors and a basement/workshop. There is a bedroom in the attic too so that is really 4 floors. The house is located on a mountain and is accessible via a long windy road, must be interesting in the snow. Granda just reminded me it's 700 metres above sea level about 6 hairpin bends to get up there. The style...

Giant Wasp museum pt2

You can read about the attack-of-the-giant-wasps here As it's winter all the live wasps are asleep :-( If you come in summer you can interact with the live wasps (whatever that means) That sounds like a different experience altogether. We did get a discount only 500yen instead of the 1000yen it would be in...

Giant Wasp museum pt1

We went through the door and were welcomed by the lady that runs the place, we took off our shoes and put on the slippers provided and entered the world of the giant wasp... tune in tomorrow and find out the surprising...

Komoro old town

We start the day with Setsubun, as it's 3rd Feb. Setsubun is the festival to get rid of demons and therefore bring good luck. They have big celebrations at shrines and temples all around Japan in Kyoto they take have a big event Ok and so to Komoro... It's a bit spooky, theres no one around but us, very unusual for England let alone...

Day 7- A Volcano erupts!

The place we were staying at Tomi city is dominated by  mountains all around and the most impressive is the Asama volcano, it is covered with snow, very beautiful. Then 2am on 2nd Feb the volcano erupted, #Bing bong bing# there is an anouncement system wired into the telephone system keeps the local people abreast of events such as earth quakes and volcanos. The girl announced (in Japanese of course) that the volcano had erupted but that it was within safety margins, although there was...