On arrival in Japan, fingerprints and a photo are taken at customs. This time around the customs officer must have thought I was dodgy as he didn't pass me through and made me wait in another area where another officer questioned me about where I would be staying. I had to start thinking in Japanese again pretty quick and after he got in contact with Sachiko (above)who I was staying with he let me on my way. I watch an Aussie program called Border Security and it felt just like that!

The next day after a fine luch, A-chan and I visited a Japanese garden in Hakata that I never knew was there.

Taiko at Solara Plaza after.

After a sushi lunch. Hitomi (right) and her mum. I used to work with Hitomi at Nijo Junior High.

Then it was then off to Nagasaki to see Shannon. She kindly picked me up in Hakata and then we zoomed down to Nagasaki in time to see a festival with fireworks - intermittant fireworks. Shannon's theory was that a eye patched, peg legged pirate must have been hired to lightn the fireworks and that was why we got to see just three at a time. Hmmm...

Shannon and I with lovely, clean, fresh aired Nagasaki coastline.

After the fresh air it was time for Bio Park which is one of the best zoos I have seen this side of Asia and you could pat and feed (special park food) a lot of the animals. We spent 5 hours walking around.

What do we have here? The meercat playcat centre page spread?

A one fanged bat.

And a shy armadillo.

But my heart was captured by the capybara who are so friendly (or like food) and have delightful characters.

Then the monkey part - feed, pat cuddle and in my case get peed on.

Shannon with some mischief.

The next day we enjoyed some more nice coastline and a scone cafe.

The cafe had lots of antiques like this toilet!

After my scones I left with a tear in my eye and a hug from Shannon back to Fukuoka. I was spoilt again here with the above view from my friends apartment in Shimayamoto.

I am very thankful to friends who are very close to my heart and their awesome hospitatilty. There is a place for you here anytime where I would love to treat you like you did me.

Afternote: In Seoul I was passed through immigration in less than 7 mins. Unbelievable. A can of beer I brought back for Woogi leaked (how I don't know as I can find a hole in the can but it is definitely empty) into my bag making for a nice beer smell through nearly everything.

Well, we set off on Saturday night for our Jirisan 1915m, mountain climb. We caught the 10.50pm train down south and got a little shut eye on the way. We got off with about 100 other hikers at 3.20am and headed for a bus which took us to the start of the track. It was a bit chilly and very cloudy. At about 4.30am, in the dark we set off to the first hut for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked in the clouds and at times the visibility was very poor. Although there was no view there were alot of wildflowers and nice trees, plants and big rocks to enjoy. There were rhododendrons and clematis and other flowers growing wild that we have in our gardens which seemed strange. We also saw a lot of chipmunks (sooooo cute) and some frogs. The mountain is famous for having black bears and although we saw many signs about bear crossings and telling us not to leave food around we didn't see a bear. Luckily it didn't rain.

Woogi among the cliffs.

The huts are set up a bit differently than at home. First you check in then around 5 or 6pm you get a sleeping area number (men and woman sleep in separate rooms. Then about half an hour after that you can collect blankets. Most people get two - one for sleeping on as you are sleeping directly on the wooden floor and one to cover them. You get about a metre and a half across and 180cm long space to sleep in (it's marked for you just so you know). I took along earplugs and eye mask cover so on the first night slept like a log until 7am!

Woogi, bless him, did all the cooking. I was spoilt!

We walked (up and down, up and down) for around 10km to the hut we stayed at for the night. When we got there an older man (he must have been in his 60's, with Woogi in the pic above) and another couple who we had meet on the first night said that the weather would turn bad the next day and that they were going to the peak right then. We decided to go too. So off we set but this time without our packs, amongst the clouds to the peak. When we got up there it was very windy but we all photographed each other with the engraved rock at the top. Woogi said that on a fine day it would be impossible to get a photo with just you and the rock because there would be so many others about. The older man sang all the way back down (except in the tricky places when he needed to concentrate) in a very nice deep voice.

Mountain cicada - much prettier than it's city cousin.

We headed off down the mountain after breakfast at 5.30am. The day was much better than the expected thunderstorms though when we looked back up the valley we could see that it was very dark at the top so we may have escaped in time.It was a steady quite steep descent but refreshing with the sun and a river with some waterfalls to walk alongside.

At 9am we reached the bottom. The older man getting there 20mins before us - quite an amazing guy.Then it was onto a bus, the onto another bus back to Seoul. Got home at 4pm. Pretty much straight into the shower and then dinner and relaxed. It was good to sleep in our bed again.

Summer is here and rainy season seems to have come to a very welcome end.

Noisy cicadas everywhere.

After 7 weekends straight of rain we manged to get out and climb a mini, 836m mountain, Baegundae mountain peak. Despite the weather being around 34 degrees and very sticky in Seoul it was relatively pleasant climbing. We still sweat buckets and drank ALOT of water but we made it!

On the way up.

The far rock is very popular for rock climbers.

A view over Seoul (maybe the West??)

At the top! It was the kind of climb that you think, ah... the view is worth it. We are going to climb a much larger 1785m mountain this weekend. Will we come back????