SHIMIZU

 Konnichiwa. Taken me a long time to get back to blogging. Busy, so busy, busy doing nothing, working the whole day through(you take it from here). Serendipity, next best thing to lucky ducky. Had no plans, just options. Got up at 6:30 to look for Mount Fuji as we entered the bay. It's what this port is for. Socked in - low cloud, rain & misty. So option 1, go to cab office get a cab tour to go see it close up, out of the question. Do back to bed to dream up option 2.

This is what we should have seen.

Ah well, option 2. Get up, go to tourist info, visit mall, wander harbour, take public ferry or bus to a black world heritage beach. Set off, waylaid outside port gate by women from cultural centre. "We have rots on today wanna go see, Washoku organic food festival" . We wandered off, went past cultural centre & waylaid again. "Wanna take part, make some food, starting now" OK we say, paid up & joined food class, we only non-japanese, me the only (clumsy) man. We were to make Nerikiri wagashi refers to classic Japanese sweets crafted from bean paste and sweet glutinous rice flour.

We made Mt Fuji. This is what it's supposed to look like.

The leaves are Maple & Ginko Beloba, made from a maple syrup & gelatine, cut with a stencil cutter. We went on to tea tasting trying teas from a small organic tea plantation owned by Masako Saito, who was there helping us. We tried, a green tea, a fermented green tea that was claimed to aid digestion & a black tea that we tried as a brew & could also be eaten raw or sprinkled on food - all great. We bought the teas to try at home.

So that was that, but no we were ushered upstairs to meet the geishas. They performed 3 dances. Chakiri-bushi - a folk song to promote Shizuoka Railway in 1927. Yakko-san - based on Samurai servants, often seen in kabuki. Gujo Harukoma Kuzishi - a harvest dance performed with wooden saucers as you would with castanets.

They make Lin look short. So that's that, no, we were next presented with bookmarks made from fallen black pine needles from the world heritage site. So that's that, no, we had the kimono's on for a photo.

Lin may be short, but their kimonos wouldn't meet over the boobs.

All that for around £25 for the 2 of us versus a ships tour of $250 each to not see Mt Fuji - serendipity. So that's that, no we did see Mt Fuji, the secret origami we did on the Tokyo tour turned out to be Mt Fuji. Which do you prefer?

So that's that, no. Masako Saito the plantation owner asked to come visit next time we were in the area.