farewell sasebo begins :*(

still here for a little longer but we had our farewell parties over the weekend. abish started off with 10 pin bowling. around 50 of his kids turned up... CHAOS. but lots of fun. then that evening we had a dinner with both geos and nova crew. it was a really good dinner at a place where you cook the meat in the middle of the table and help yourself at a salad bar. of course more drinks and karaoke followed.

at bowling, sign that the kids made for their sensei

look at the "boys" just hanging out

one of the tables at dinner from left to right going around the table...... yukiko, charles, spencer, saori and kana

matt, katie, tomomi, kazuyuki, sarah and yuka enjoying some good food!

hannah, naomi and rumi, teachers and manager that work at the geos adult school next to abish

weston, rumi, naomi, abish, chiharu - abishs current manager, naomi abishs old manager and naomi's boyfriend

these two look happy... nice posing in the background by kana and saori there

at dreamers, a sports bar

check out these posers!

weston, spencer and sarah - with yuka in the background - having a ball at karaoke

aso san

well the time is counting down till our experience in japan is over :*(

it has snuck up on us so quickly! so now we are trying to cram everything we can into our weekends. last weekend we finally made it out to mt aso, known to the japanese as aso san. it has a beautiful green sulphur lake inside.

the weather wasnt the greatest but we were still able to enjoy the view.

rim of the volcano

abish on the rim

sarah standing near the edge

not too sure what this says?

had to do something to entertain ourselves on the 2-3hr train ride home

hawks ichiban!!!

we went to the baseball yesterday, our first experience of this game ever and it was awesome! fukuoka softbank hawks are our team and we couldnt have been prouder, they took out the nippon ham fighters 7-4.

foam hand

we both wish we had gone earlier so that couldve seen more than one game. we visited the merchandise store before we went in. abish bought a cap (sarah had bought one a few months earlier in preperation) and sarah bought a foam hand, mini baseball bats to clap with and a wristband, no.18 Nagisa Arakaki (reason she chose that no? he was the cutest of course!) no shame in being fully kitted out here!

us infront of the dome in our gear

the fans are amazing, not a dull moment through the entire game, so many different chants and routines neither of us got the hang of it, but up on our feet, we tried our best :D. its great, they have people coming up and down the stairs the whole game you can grab a drink whenever you want without having to miss any of the action.

hawks fielding

great pic showing the hawk fans chanting

abish enjoying the atmosphere

left to right.... adam (the black cap) jess, junko and naomi

right to left.... jess, hannah and sarah having a great time

guy helping to keep the crowd in good spirits, they had many people playing drums, trumpets and instructing the crowd

after the hawks won everyone in the crowd let off balloons, well everyone except hannah and sarah who didnt know this particular ritual and felt very left out.... then they let off fireworks... (the dome was enclosed so they were able to turn off all the lights to make it dark)

celebration fireworks

roof opening after fireworks were let off

after we were walking back from the game we spotted an indoor baseball place, seeing as we were all hyped up over the game, we thought we'd be awesome batters so we went to knock a few balls around. hmm seemed more like the balls knocked us around but it was so much fun would really love to do it again.

oh geez here we go... thinks shes Nobuhiko Matsunaka

abish joins in.... hes got a bit of Hiroshi Shibahara action going on, all good fun

we would recommend to anyone visting japan... you should definately go to a baseball game while your here.

GO THE HAWKS!

seoul, korea

while being so close, we wanted to visit korea. we stayed in seoul for 5 days and basically did nothing :s

we arrived on a sunday evening, both very tired and hungry so shot across the road to try and find some food and to abishs DELIGHT found a dominos pizza place, as you could imagine dinner was decided.

the second day wasnt much better, woke up late and didnt venture out until maybe 4 or 5pm again just for food, made it a little further this time however... about a 20 min walk to a small shopping centre that had a bulk supermarket.

the third day we knew we had to get out of the hotel, so caught the subway into downtown seoul and found some markets.

the fourth day we didnt really know what to do so went to the subway, caught a train and just kinda wandered around.... somewhere in seoul ....... by this time it was very clear that korean people dont see foreigners very often, some crazy looks going on there!!

then finally on the fifth day we had a morning flight out of seoul. we didnt take many photos either, the ones below are pretty much it. it couldve been much better we realise but when it came down to it we were both just too lazy :D

near the hotel

a river near our hotel, looks kinda dirty in the photo but was actually quite pretty

downtown seoul

china

we went to beijing and had a great time. it was good for abish because he is half chinese and had never been to china before and good for me cos i got to hang out with my eldest sister debbie for a few days, unfortunately her hubbie tevis was called away on business in london just DAYS before we came :( .... talk about timing!!

we went to the forbidden city, great wall of china and other stuff along with a bike ride around the back streets - LOTS of fun. we even got to catch our own fish and then have it cooked up for us, well i tried to catch one but it wasnt happening so the elder sis took over and that did the trick - actually, what you dont see in the pictures is the guy who helped her catch it! but we'll let her think shes the hero for now.

of course we were both hanging out for yum char, debbie took us to a great place the food was sooo good!

one of debbies friends from her university joined us for a day, yukiko, she's japanese :D really sweet girl, strange how we feel at home around japanese people now. all in all it was a fantastic trip that neither of us will ever forget.